


Three Weeks is a Lifetime

by PhantomDreamshade



Category: Monster Prom (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Fluff, He/They pronouns for Oz, Multi, Spoilers for pretty much all the endings so be warned, The fic will probably lean heavier into the angst as it progresses, at least a little bit, but there'll be a happy end I promise, tags will be updated as we go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:08:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23091598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomDreamshade/pseuds/PhantomDreamshade
Summary: It’s finally Senior Prom, and the school’s most charismatic personalities are actually graduating this time—rules for how long monsters stay in school vary by species and are ridiculously strange and convoluted. Seriously, it’s like they’ve been stuck in a time loop or something. How many times have they actually gone to prom? No one really knows.ANYWAY—after chasing after love interests for so long, everyone’s favorite squad of Player Characters has decided that this year, they’re going to focus on themselves. They have their own problems and aspirations to deal with aside from being way too thirsty for their own good (not that anyone else seems to know or care) and since it seems like whatever they do with their prom dates is more or less forgotten about by the next cycle, they’re skipping prom this year.Needless to say, everyone is perturbed by this break in routine. With the end of high school on the horizon, the love interests are going to have to decide if they’ve found someone they want to have a real relationship with—and with how things are looking, they’re going to have to do some of the chasing and problem-solving this time around.
Relationships: Aaravi the Slayer/Hope, Blue | Vicky & Green | Brian & Red | Amira & Yellow | Oz (Monster Prom), Blue | Vicky/Scott Howl, Calculester Hewlett-Packard & Blobert & Kale, Dahlia Aquino/Miranda Vanderbilt, Green | Brian/Damien LaVey, Joy/Liam de Lioncourt, Queerplatonic Brian & Oz, Red | Amira/Vera Oberlin/Polly Geist, Valerie Oberlin/Faith, Yellow | Oz/Z'gord | Zoe
Comments: 110
Kudos: 293





	1. A Break in Routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something goes awry.

_Week 1, Monday—Lunch_

**~A~**

“Hey, boos!” Polly called from the next table over. “Come over here and sit with us! I brought some of my world-famous toilet wine~”

Liam sighed, pausing his intricate arranging of the sushi plate in front of him. “Polina, can’t you see I’m—”

“Dude, maybe it’s a good idea,” Damien said, glancing around. “You smell that?”

“What are you—oh, that’s definitely some plot armor,” Liam said.

“Yeah, the fucking Slayer’s out here lurking again. You know she always tries to murder us when we sit together. Maybe she’ll back off if we sit with Zoe and Polly today.”

“Ugh, fine. You’re the only one of the three of you that actually takes up table space for eating, anyway,” Liam said, carefully lifting his sushi plate off the table and sitting next to Polly. Damien brought over the multiple piles of food he’d gotten and started chowing down.

“Mm mm,” Zoe said, dragging her tentacles away from the screaming woman she had tied up next to her. “That is actually some good sanity. Now that that’s out of the way—do you know why I had Polly call you two over here?” She leaned across the table, looking uncharacteristically serious.

“To try my toilet wine?” Polly said.

“No, Polly, that was just the cover. Is it just me or does it feel like the fundamental fabric of reality just changed?” Zoe asked. Everyone gave her a confused look. “Y’know, like the medium of the universe shifted from visual novel to prose?” More confused looks.

“Zoe, babe, you _need_ to set me up with whatever you’re on right now,” Polly said, setting a hand on her shoulder.

“Wha—no! I’m not on anything, Polly! Just—look. Vera and Miranda are sitting over there, right? And Scott and Calculester are over there. We’re sitting here, and it looks like Violet and Tate—ew—took the table you guys just left. Now, what’s wrong with this picture?”

“Nothing’s on fire?” Damien suggested. 

Zoe pointed to the last remaining table. “The Player Characters are all sitting together, eating like normal people, instead of sitting with any of us!”

“The who?” Liam asked.

“Oz, Amira, Brian, and Vicky? They’re in a band called the Player Characters? Ugghhhhh, it’s like you guys don’t even know the most _basic_ lore.”

Polly squinted at the Player Characters’ table and then at Zoe. “Wait, wait, maybe I’m higher than I thought I was. They’re, like, all friends, right? Why is that weird?”

“It is officially three weeks until Prom, Polly. This is when they all start trying to get a prom date, _and they aren’t sitting with any of us.”_

Damien paused and looked over Zoe’s shoulder at the table after more or less inhaling a hot dog. “Shit, you’re right. That’s fucking weird.”

“Thank you!” Zoe said, throwing a hand and a tentacle up in the air.

“That doesn’t explain what you want us to _do_ about it, Zoe,” Liam said.

“How about the three of you go over there and snoop while I sit here and take extremely detailed notes on the conversation from a distance?” Zoe said.

“No thank you. I haven’t even gotten to take _one_ food pic yet,” Liam said.

“Ugh, you’re impossible. Damien? Polly? Pleeeease?” Zoe gave them her best approximation of puppy-dog eyes.

“Eh, fuck it. I don’t have anything better to do.” Damien stood up, marched over between Brian and Vicky, pulled up a chair, and kicked his feet up on the table. “‘Sup, noobs?” Polly followed close behind him, sitting between Amira and Oz.

“Eating,” Vicky said, gesturing to her salad while reading through some kind of textbook. There was something dismissive about her tone of voice that left Damien confused.

“Yeah, but like… what are you _up_ to?” Damien asked. “C’mon, you guys gotta be up to something rad, especially if all four of you are here plotting together.”

“We’re not really… plotting, Damien. We’re just eating together,” Oz said, their voice a telepathic echo that radiated out from them.

“Seriously? You’re just eating? No crazy hijinks? You have to be up to _something_ fun,” Damien said, a little weirded out. Zoe was right, this felt really fucking wrong.

“Wellll, if you’re not doing anything fun maybe we can plan something,” Polly said, leaning a little closer to Amira. “I just came into possession of a _lot_ of guac, so maybe one of you fine monsters would care to join me after school for a little… Reverse Romanian Wilkinson?” She waggled her eyebrows at Amira.

“You did that one with Vicky,” Amira said, deadpan. “If you knew anything about me you’d know that’s one of my least favorite kinky sex positions, Polly. Unless you confused Vicky and I. We look so alike, I know.” Oz scooted away from Polly a bit, glancing between her and Amira and fiddling with the hem of their sweater.

“Whoa, that was a little uncalled for,” Polly said, a little taken aback. Did she seriously get _turned down_ by one of the four thirstiest monsters in the school? “You could just say you aren’t a fan of the Reverse Romanian Wilkinson. No need to get hostile.”

“Sorry,” Amira said, though she didn’t exactly sound apologetic. “I just wanted to have a quiet lunch with my friends and then get to my AP Drug Trafficking quiz. I’ll… see you guys around.” She stood up and left without another word; Polly and Damien looked at each other, even more bewildered.

“I-I, uh… also have AP Drug Trafficking so uh… bye!” Oz quickly stood up and fled the cafeteria.

“And I need to get to Biological Warfare. See you guys!” Vicky managed her best cheerful wave and left Brian alone at the table with Damien and Polly.

“...Okay seriously what the fuck was all that?” Damien asked, staring hard at Brian. Brian sighed a little.

“We aren’t doing prom this year,” he said. “So I guess they just wanted to get back to class and get it over with.”

“Okay, hold up—I’m really starting to think I’m high off something I don’t remember taking, which is really weird for me. I thought you just said you aren’t doing prom this year,” Polly said.

“Yup.” Brian ate the last bite of his ravioli and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“Wait, wait, wait. It’s _senior prom,_ Brian. You don’t just _not_ go to senior prom. Especially after all the other fucking proms we’ve all been to,” Damien said.

Brian just shrugged at him. “That’s kinda the thing, Damien—we’ve been around that ringer a shitload of times by now, y’know? High school’s ending, so we’re just tryna focus on ourselves this time. It’s fun but… it’s not like anything ever comes from prom for us, I guess.”

“What do you mean nothing comes from prom? Are you seriously forgetting all the times we—”

“Nothing past the fun,” Brian said. “And we’re kinda… I dunno, past that at this point. Everything always just resets after prom night, y’know? We just end back up at square one in the thirst club, or whatever it is you guys call us. You all barely interact with us during the rest of the school year. We just… all decided we wanted to look for something serious at this point, I guess, and… well, I guess we figured we weren’t gonna find that here.”

Damien frowned, eyes a little wide. “But—I thought—”

“C’mon, D, you know I’m right. We were just a lot more into you guys than you were into us, and that’s okay,” Brian said.

“Okay I don’t think that’s fair,” Damien said.

Brian raised an eyebrow at him. “We spent literally all our time trying to help you guys out with your shit, D, and all you wanted us for was a couple wild nights. Like I said, that’s okay. But we wanna move on to something else now.”

“You’re making it sound like we didn’t do shit for you guys or something,” Damien said, starting to get angry.

“What’s my favorite color?”

Damien looked at him. “Huh?”

“If I’m wrong, you’d at least know what my favorite color is, right?”

“It’s. It’s uh… green?” Damien said, wracking his brain.

“Because I’m green,” Brian said, giving Damien a flat look.

“...Yeah? Okay you know what, that’s bullshit. I bet you don’t know what _my_ favorite color is either.”

“Red. Macerated-Spleen Carmine if you wanna be exact. It’s the color of goblin guts, your favorite shade of hellfire, and it’s the best compliment to your skin tone when you’re going for a bolder look. Or so you’ve told me.”

Damien blinked a little as Brian stood up. “I gotta get to class. See you guys around.” He walked off.

“...Fuck,” Damien said, resting his head in his hands.

“Yeah, that was… intense,” Polly said. “I didn’t think I’d ever see the day those four just completely ditched us. Like…” she wrapped her arms around herself, “that really, really sucked.”

“You’ve got everyone on speed dial, right?” Damien asked.

“Everyone meaning…?”

“You know, all our friends. The ones they usually chase after. We gotta figure out what the fuck is going on,” Damien said. “Tell ‘em to meet in the library or something tomorrow evening. We’re talking about this bullshit and figuring out what the hell we’re gonna do about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo, everybody! I just recently got into Monster Prom and have spent many an insomnia-fueled night dreaming up elaborate fanfiction as a result so... have a prologue. Just as a format thing, after the next chapter, you can expect individual blocked-off plotlines within each chapter dealing with specific characters/pairings. The characters will of course still all interact with each other, but this way everything should (hopefully) remain neat and organized. Aaaand if you're really only here for one pairing then that might prove to be kinda convenient for you as well (I wouldn't recommend following just one of them as the plotlines do all interconnect but hey, you do you).
> 
> On a separate note I'm writing Oz as He/They nonbinary in this fic (as in, they're comfortable with both He/Him and They/Them) so don't be caught off guard when he's referred to using both. Probably not both within the same sentence like I just did but you get my point.
> 
> Anyway—thanks for giving this fic a look and I hope you have an awesome day!


	2. The Secret Society of Love Interests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The love interests all meet to discuss what they're going to do about prom.

_Week 1, Tuesday—Evening_

**~A~**

“Alright, everybody’s here! Anton, Bubbles, remove all the riff raff from the room so we can have our super secret meeting, would you?” Miranda sat down on the end of the two pushed-together library tables as her mermen goons forcibly removed all the other students from the room. “So—what are we talking about?”

“The Player Characters,” Zoe said, wheeling over a giant whiteboard covered in conspiracy-board-esque eldritch scribbles. She growled, annoyed, when she saw more blank faces staring at her. “They’re in a band together, how do _none_ of you know—”

“Brian, Amira, Vicky, and Oz,” Damien said, tapping his foot under the table. “You all noticed they didn’t sit with any of us, right?”

“Hey, you don’t get to take the credit, Damien. You didn’t notice until I told you,” Zoe said.

“...I knew something felt off,” Vera said, making an effort to decipher Zoe’s scribbles and giving up a moment later. “I just didn’t realize it was that. It is rather strange now that I think about it, isn’t it?”

“Ohhhhh, that makes so much more sense now!” Scott said. “Calculester and I had this disagreement about me sniffing butts, and we just kind of… never resolved it? Because no one came to give us a wacky solution to our problem! I mean, I still don’t understand what he was talking about at lunch!”

“Friend Scott, I was merely pointing out that it is impolite to sniff someone’s butt without their—”

“Blah blah blah no one cares about you guys’s fixation with other people’s asses. We’re here to figure out what the fuck we’re gonna do about this,” Damien said.

“What do you mean ‘do?’ They sat together at lunch, Damien. It might be odd, but it’s nothing to waste everyone’s time on with an emergency meeting like this,” Vera said.

“They aren’t going to prom this year. With any of us,” Damien said, standing up and leaning on the table to glare down at Vera. “That’s more than _odd,_ that’s fucking insane.”

“Not going to prom? Those four? Why that’s absolutely ridiculous,” Miranda said. “Those four couldn’t possibly think about not even _attempting_ to woo me for our senior prom! It’s just not possible.”

“Actually, I have complete transcripts of the entire conversation they had,” Zoe said, distributing a stack of manila folders. “My best guess is that this specific timeline has moved out of visual novel format and into straight-up writing which would mean—”

“Okay that’s the second time you’ve mentioned this visual novel mumbo-jumbo,” Polly said. “Seriously, what’s the deal?”

“You know how you did those really weird drugs that one time?” Zoe asked. “And you convinced Scott and Liam we were actually all just in a v… um. Actually, y’know, that might not be the best—”

“Wait,” Polly said, suddenly staring straight at (or through) her hands. “No. Oh my god I tried so hard to forget!” She jumped to her feet, clutching the sides of her head. “Guys we’re all actually trapped inside a vi—”

Zoe wrapped a tentacle around her mouth, silencing her, before latching another tentacle over her eyes. “Hahaha, nope, we’re gonna suppress that memory! We don’t need an existential crisis today, we have way more interesting things to figure out. Just relax, shh, everything’ll be fine.” Polly gradually went limp as Zoe worked her eldritch mind-magic on her and set her back in her chair.

“Oh, wow, that’s some good Mary Jane,” Polly said, looking dazed. “Oh hey, everybody, how are all of you? Sorry, I just smoked the last one I think. But it’s good. It’s good stuff.”

“Just trust me when I say it’s better none of you ask,” Zoe said, looking around at all the concerned faces. “Back to the important things going on—prom. It’s time to start brainstorming, people.”

“I’m still skeptical,” Liam said. “Maybe this is all part of some elaborate romance scheme they’ve concocted—as you’ve said, it’s senior prom. Maybe they’ve just decided to go for something even bigger than usual.”

“They were fucking right though,” Damien said. “They were right about us not knowing shit about them. Like, I’ve been wracking my brain over Brian’s stupid color question all day and I don’t have a _clue._ And it’s not just that, either.” He started pacing back and forth in front of the whiteboard. “I don’t know what his favorite food is, or what his favorite kind of vandalism is, or what he wants to do after high school, or… fucking anything! And he—”

Damien growled loudly, picking up an abandoned stack of books on one of the library tables, setting the books on fire, and flinging them across the room to slowly set the library aflame.

“I mean, he’s fucking awesome!” Damien said. “He does crimes like a fucking beast, he has the most _badass_ corpse collection you’ve ever seen in your goddamn lives, he’s awesome at sex, he has _so many fucking guns,_ he—you how it was for me last year,” he said, crossing his arms and looking down at his shoes. “You know, with hiding how I wanted to be a hairstylist and makeup artist from my dads. And he was there the whole time being all supportive and shit, and I…” He growled again, slamming his fist down on the table and cracking it. “I don’t know fucking shit about him! None of the crap that matters, anyway. And he’s right, I barely talked to him this whole fucking school year and I didn’t even realize it! Like… the whole thing just blurs together, I dunno. After all that I should at least know his favorite fucking color. And I don’t, and I feel like shit about it.”

Damien sat back down and leaned back in his chair. He frowned at all the surprised faces staring at him. “Don’t look at me like that! I know you all feel the same about _one_ of them, don’t bullshit me.”

Scott tilted his head. “You mean… how Vicky’s super nice and smells really good and helps me with all my homework and—”

“Yes, that,” Damien said. “I don’t know why you were all looking at me like my face is melting off or something. I thought… I thought we were already…” He crossed his arms and looked down. “This all just fucking sucks.”

“Friend Damien is correct on multiple points,” Calculester said. “Friend Zoe asked me to run some calculations in preparation for this meeting, which I believe she included in the folders she distributed. 86 percent of all of our major problems are resolved via suggestions made by Oz, Amira, Brian, and/or Vicky; these four have spent 94% of all three-week periods leading up to prom attempting to solve the aforementioned problems and/or convince one of us eight—or, rarely, some of our other classmates—to attend prom with them. Despite these statistics, my data of Oz, Amira, Brian, and Vicky is distressingly incomplete. Cross-referencing with Friend Damien confirms this lack of data is a common problem. I believe this makes us… bad friends.”

Calculester switched to his :( face and Miranda patted him on the shoulder. “No, no, no, Calculester! We aren’t bad friends! Vera, tell him!” she said.

“I don’t see how this is our problem,” Vera said. “If they want to spend all their time chasing us, it isn’t our obligation to do anything for them. Just stupid on their part. Besides—when they see their little stunt for attention isn’t working they’ll just come crawling back to us anyway. We are, after all, the most sought-after people in the whole school. No one walks away from Vera Oberlin.”

“Or Miranda Vanderbilt,” Miranda said, nodding in agreement.

“Yeah. Have fun being alone,” Damien said, twirling a knife between his fingers.

“Excuse me?” Vera said.

“Relationships are mutual, Vera,” Damien said. “One partner can’t just take-take-take all the time. You know what I think? They all got wise enough to realize we’ve been treating them like shit and they’re over it. And where do you think that leaves us?”

“Still sought after by everyone but those four?” Vera said.

“Oh yeah? When’s the last time you went to prom with someone that _wasn’t_ them?” Damien said. Vera blinked, unable to answer. “That’s what I thought. Sure, maybe we’re all popular, but I’m pretty damn sure everyone else but them is too intimidated to ask us to prom. This school’s full of fucking wusses, I wouldn’t say yes to any of them anyway. And the four people who are actually badass enough to chase us, we just forget about after prom is over every time. I don’t think that makes them the stupid ones, Vera.” 

Vera rolled her eyes and Damien smirked a little, some measure of spite sitting in his stomach. “Besides, Vera, you really shouldn’t be pulling the popular card. I mean, Amira’s the only one that even really tried with you, you know? Oz tried maybe once or twice I think. Vicky never did. Neither did Brian, but I’m pretty sure he’s gay so.”

“What are you implying now, Damien?” Vera said, her temper starting to run short.

“Look at the numbers Cal printed out for you. Brian spent none of his proms with you. Neither did Vicky. Oz spent less than one percent of his. Even Amira only spent… what was it? 41 percent?” Damien chuckled to himself as Vera read through Cal’s data sheets. “Seems like she spent almost as much time with Polly. Guess you were never actually special to anyone in the first place, so I guess it makes sense you wouldn’t care. I mean it’s only natural given how unlikable you are, but.”

“Listen here, demon bitch, I—”

“Guys, guys! Please stop being mean to each other!” Scott said, sinking into his chair a little and giving the room puppy-dog eyes. “If Damien and Calculester are right, and we haven’t been very good friends, then… how do we fix it?”

“Well,” Polly said, uncharacteristically solemn, “when we sat with them, they were talking about how we didn’t know them too well and that it didn’t seem like we were interested in anything past having a fun time with them. Like… all the stuff they did for us didn’t really matter to us, y’know? So maybe if we were wanting to have a special someone then we could… I dunno. Ask them to prom this year, prove that we care.”

“...Polina makes a good point,” Liam said. “High school is drawing to a close, and we don’t really know how often any of us will interact after this. From the sound of it, it seems the subjects of our discussion might not want to pursue any contact with us _at all_ after prom. If we were hoping to find a serious relationship, then… this is our last chance.”

“Wait, wait,” Zoe said, her eyes lighting up. “So you’re saying… we should switch places? And be the Player Characters this time around? ...Metaphorically speaking.”

“You mean do all the chasing? Fuck that,” Damien said. “I’mma just straight-up ask Brian to be my boyfriend. They were talking about how we never wanted to commit, so I’m just gonna do it. I already know how I feel about him. Screw all this, I’m gonna go see if he’s still at school or not.” Damien walked out from the library as the smoke alarms finally went off from the burning books. Everyone ignored them.

“Yeah, yeah, he can do what he wants. I’m going _full method_ on this though,” Zoe said, giggling. “This is going to be so much fun! I gotta go and practice my wacky decision-making, bye guys!” Zoe also rushed out of the room.

“...To summarize,” Calculester said, “I believe the common conclusion that has been reached is that we should attempt to discern which of the four we feel a connection with and approach them about entering a ‘serious’ relationship. Is this assumption correct?”

“If that’s what you wanna do, Cal,” Polly said. “I’m gonna do some thinking, I think. For now though I guess we can adjourn the meeting, or whatever. I’ll see you guys around.” Polly faded through the floor, and everyone else gradually packed up their things to leave.

**~B~**

Brian had already left, much to Damien’s annoyance. He’d have to catch him first thing tomorrow.

The more Damien thought about everything, the more confused he became. Just this last prom, Brian had been the one to help him convince his dads that he’d make an awesome hairstylist and makeup artist. Brian listened to everything Damien had to say; he took a fucking bullet to the leg for him. And that was just the last time—Damien couldn’t even begin to count how many ridiculous adventures they had besides last year. 

Honestly, Damien thought they were on the same track already after that last prom. That they’d finish high school, move to hell together while Damien pursued his dreams, and be badasses together forever. The thought that Brian might feel like Damien had just used him after all that just… made Damien sick to his stomach. But he couldn’t even figure out a way to justify the damn situation, even to himself. Hell, he didn’t even know what Brian’s dreams _were,_ or if he could even pursue them in hell.

Tomorrow, though, Damien was gonna fix that. If it wasn’t clear that he wanted Brian before, it definitely would be then. And then he’d work on being an awesome boyfriend and repaying Brian for all the shit he did. Easy.

**~C~**

Vera was not pleased.

She may have been a little more dismissive than was necessary at the meeting—mostly because Damien’s weird gushiness was getting on her nerves—but in reality the news that Amira was seemingly planning to cut ties with her was a big problem. Almost all of Vera’s future plans involved having Amira at her side as a partner, financial advisor, and criminal accomplice. She of course had contingencies set up if Amira were to die, betray Vera, or become a financial liability, but those outcomes seemed so unlikely that those plans were all half-baked at best. Amira was tough as nails and smart as a whip, so the first and third options were improbable at best. And the betrayal one…

Vera was very, _very_ selective about who she let into her real circle of trust. That circle included her sister, her father, Scott, and Polly; and Amira, now that she was forced to think about it. She was so selective for the sole reason that she never, _ever_ wanted to be betrayed by all the awful people the world was full of. And the fact that Amira would just toss her aside like this felt like the ultimate betrayal. It was painful. It was _infuriating._

Amira would have to be an idiot to walk away from Vera Oberlin; but at the same time, according to Calculester’s data, Damien was right. She spent almost as much time with Polly as she did with Vera. It was impossible for Vera to tell if she’d been had, or if she’d wildly misread Amira’s intentions, or if Amira was really just that stupid. Because it couldn’t actually be a flaw on Vera’s part. That would be absolutely ridiculous.

Still; she really did need Amira around, so Vera was going to have to get to the bottom of this. Normally Vera wouldn’t have even _dreamed_ of chasing after someone like some lovesick puppy, but… if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. If Amira was going to whine, Vera could tolerate swallowing her pride and asking Amira out instead of the other way around. Just once, though.

**~D~**

This whole stupid thing was a complete bummer.

Everyone liked Polly. She was _literally_ the life of the party. Well, not literally considering she was dead, but that wasn’t the point. Maybe there were a _few_ people that avoided her like the plague to avoid getting pranked, but that was also beside the point. So having Amira and her friends just ditch her like that felt… really weird. Bad, even. She’d never felt that much anger or bitterness directed at her just with a glance.

Polly hated bitterness. What was the point of an afterlife if you didn’t enjoy it? She didn’t need a bunch of negativity dragging her down when she could be out there having fun. Maybe that made her a little careless sometimes, but nobody’s perfect. And she was getting better at that, too, anyway! At least, Polly thought she was. The way Amira has looked at her suggested otherwise.

It was two proms ago—three?—that Amira had helped her through her poltergeist episode. She’d even given up her wacky shenanigans for once to _really_ listen to and support her. If Polly was being honest, it was nice to have someone finally know what she’d been through, know just how _not okay_ she was with the way she died. It was her unfinished business after all. She didn’t hide how she died from everyone else because she was embarrassed or something, it was because she didn’t want it sucking the life out of her death. But having someone know her beyond her fun party self was… nice. She felt like, if it ever really came down to it, she could talk to Amira. And now Amira wanted nothing to do with her, apparently.

Sure, Brian had talked about nothing really coming from prom for him or whatever, but Amira had never really said anything other than confusing her and Vicky or something. So what did Polly do? A prank she didn’t remember? Did she accidentally say something racist to her? Was Amira _bored_ of her? No, that was just silly. You didn’t get bored of Polly Geist.

Welp—there was only one thing to do. Get Amira super, _suuuper_ drunk and get her to spill what was going on. Which would require Polly to be halfway sober, which was weird, but some situations in life required a little sobriety.

**~E~**

Scott sat down on the bleachers, scratching his head. None of Calculester’s numbers made any sense to him (not because he couldn’t read them, because he totally could!), and neither did much of the meeting. He wasn’t _really_ being a bad friend, was he? Especially to Vicky. Vicky was so smart and funny and nice and understanding and gave the best belly rubs and…

Scott really couldn’t figure out what he’d done wrong. He hadn’t been mean, he’d shared all his favorite things with Vicky—namely sports, and cheerleading, and his favorite bones—and they’d had so many amazing prom nights together. It was twisting Scott’s brain in knots.

Well, there was only one possible answer: Scott just wasn’t trying hard enough. Starting tomorrow, he was gonna give a hundred and ten—no, a hundred and twenty!—percent and make sure Vicky was the happiest person on the whole planet.

**~F~**

The data was… disheartening, to say the least. If any of Calculester’s experiences at Spooky High were accurate, finding a romantic partner was one of the most important aspects of living as an authentic organic lifeform. He’d never thought to do a comparative analysis until Zoe had asked him to, but with the data now in front of him it was crystal clear: he was not living a very successful life as an organic lifeform.

The romantic partner Calculester had the most success with was Oz, and even he only spent 13% of his prom nights with Calculester; behind Oz was Brian at 11% and Vicky at 10%. Even accounting for the fact that Calculester had not been attending Spooky High for as long as Damien, Vera, Polly, Scott, Miranda, or Liam, his chances of a successful romantic outcome with Vicky, Oz, Amira, or Brian were distressingly low—especially compared to the 71% of Brian’s prom nights Damien occupied, or even the 53% of Oz’s prom nights Zoe had occupied. 

It was clear Calculester was doing something wrong, but he had insufficient data to diagnose the issue. Based on previous experience, his best option was to approach Vicky, Oz, Amira, and/or Brian and ask them to come up with an outlandish but unexpectedly effective solution to his conundrum.

**~G~**

Trying to summarize human (or monstrous, rather) relationships with a spreadsheet of numbers was completely inane. Sure, everyone at this school was completely obsessed with prom and who they would go with and who was going with this or that person, but that just made prom mainstream and therefore passé. Sure, maybe Liam had enjoyed the times he’d _ironically_ went to prom with one of the Player Characters (who he was debating researching later—the fact that he’d never heard of their band was intriguing to say the least, but a group of high school friends in a band together was also incredibly cliché). Maybe he enjoyed dressing up in a more classic tux and spending time dancing and romancing. That didn’t mean Liam had fallen into the trap of heteronormative high-school-sweetheart romance; the numbers, helpfully, proved his carefully crafted unpopularity. He was, officially, the least popular of the eight present at the meeting. He spent a tenth of his proms with Oz; that was the lowest “high score” of any of them by, admittedly, a slight margin.

And yet.

Liam’s entire persona was based on being avant-garde and misunderstood, but it was difficult to justify that persona if there was literally no one that understood him. To have that one or two people who accepted him for everything that he was, who gave him the approval so deliciously denied to him by the rest of society. Somewhere in his subconscious, Liam thought Oz was that person; his beloved yaoi instructor. But if the data was to be trusted—and ignoring science was so completely out of fashion—Oz probably wanted to be with Zoe. Liam was a distant fourth to them. His chances were even less with Brian, and he had a feeling Damien would chop him into pieces and then burn his remains if he even tried to pursue that route. He’d only gone to a handful of proms here and there with Vicky, and not one with Amira, who was probably a lesbian judging by the fact she’d been to prom with all the women but none of the men. Without any of them, there really was no one. No one except—

...That was long past, anyway. It shouldn’t have mattered so much to Liam—it should have been something he celebrated. But, though he hated to admit it, it stung a little.

This hopeless line of thought was useless. Maybe he still stood a chance with one of them, and the numbers were the result of one of them trying to not try to impress Liam, which would be an extremely attractive quality. Liam hoped it was Oz. Either way, Liam would regret it for the rest of his immortal life if he didn’t at least try.

**~H~**

Damn this universe for having so many excellent ships!

The elaborate shipping chart Zoe had cooked up was getting difficult for even her eldritch brain to wrap its head around. There were too many possible options even just for the ships involving her—Zoe x Vicky, Zoe x Calculester, Zoe x Vendronica, Zoe x Polly x Brian x Sasuke x Mamimi the Oni Girl (she knew that one wasn’t possible in this particular universe but Zoe could dream). Plus, making _any_ of those ships canon would disappoint everyone who didn’t ship that ship. Then again this was only one timeline and there were infinite other timelines to explore, so she wasn’t super torn up about that. She started whittling down the niche ships that she didn’t care for (which were still totally valid!) and eventually came to the conclusion that she should try for Zoe x Brian, Zoe x Amira, Zoe x Vicky, or Zoe x Oz. This timeline seemed to revolve more around the Player Characters and she wanted to give them their time to shine. Besides, it would be good practice for her for whenever Monster Prom: Reverse came out.

Brian had been headcanoned as gay in this particular fanfiction, so Zoe x Brian was out. And Vicky x Scott was a super cute ship that Zoe didn’t really want to interfere with, which left Zoe x Amira and Zoe x Oz—a rarepair and a popular ship. It really did seem like this universe was setting up Zoe x Oz from the beginning, since Oz had been the one to release her from the totem, fix her cult for her, and had been immensely supportive of her identity from the start. And maybe Zoe had a serious crush on Oz. And _maybe_ she’d been leaning towards Zoe x Oz from the very beginning and had created this elaborate internal monologue to satisfy her fandom conscience.

But Zoe x Amira…

...Zoe really didn’t ship it. Amira had a lot of other more interesting pairings anyway, in Zoe’s subjective opinion. Zoe x Oz it was then—sometimes popular ships are good for a reason!

**~I~**

All this talk of not being good to their friends and attempting to chase them for a prom date was _exhausting_ to Miranda. How could any of them _possibly_ feel slighted? Being able to go to prom with Miranda Vanderbilt was a complete and utter privilege. All her poor friends must have been confused.

They did bring up one important point, however—high school was drawing to a close, and Miranda had yet to decide on a suitable candidate for marriage. Considering the meeting they’d just had, it was clear Brian, Amira, Oz, and Vicky were the most sought-after monsters in the school other than Miranda and her friends themselves, so it was only natural that her partner would be one of them. That meant all Miranda had to do was survey all of them in the weeks leading up to prom and make a selection. Easy.

This whole process was going to be very simple, Miranda was sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this chapter's a little hard to follow; I wanted to get the stage all set so we know where everyone stands. Now I can get into the good stuff, mwahaha
> 
> ~~Also Zoe fourth walls are expensive please stop I beg of you~~


	3. Jumping the Gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damien asks Brian to be his boyfriend; Zoe enters her first 'event' with Oz; Scott tries to spend some time with Vicky; Vera and Polly both attempt to ask Amira out.

_Week 1, Wednesday—Morning_

**~A~**

“Fucking hell,” Damien growled, wiping his mouth for the third time, “that’s not the right shade either.” He pulled out another tube of lipstick from his bag and started putting it on; he didn’t know why his make-up game was so off today. It was probably the shitty bathroom mirrors—they’d been stained and cracked so many times that it was impossible to get accurate colors off of them. The only other explanation was that he was nervous, which was stupid. Damien LaVey didn’t get fucking nervous, especially about asking someone out. He was one sexy bastard and he knew it.

Never mind that he wasn’t asking Brian out, per se, but asking him to be his boyfriend. After Brian had sort of just told him he wasn’t interested. Whatever, he wasn’t nervous.

“Finally,” Damien said, satisfied at last. He admired his work for a few seconds: black jacket, purple t-shirt that was just a little too short and showed off his midriff a little, the tightest pair of jeans he had, hair styled up to perfection, a flawless subtle makeup job with deep eye-gore-red lipstick to draw attention to his mouth and the teeth he’d acid-polished and filed to wicked points last night. He grinned a little—he was dressed to slay today.

Then he demolished the already-abused mirror with a kick to release some of his frustration. Normally he would have done this at home before coming to school, but he’d had dodgeball first period and didn’t want to risk sweating everything off. None of that mattered, though, because Brian’s free period was almost over and Damien was running out of time to catch him. Luckily, Brian was pretty serious about his FoF games and usually ended up waiting for the last possible second to leave the library.

Damien knocked over some noob and her stack of nerd books, took a second to compose himself, and walked over to Brian’s computer with every drop of swagger he had. This particular match had gone well for Brian, judging by the smirk on his face as he shut the computer off and took off his headphones. Damien tossed his stuff by the computer next to Brian’s.

“Hey, noob. Mind if I sit next to you?”

“Yeah, sure, I’m just packing up anyw—”

Brian froze mid-sentence as he looked at Damien, then immediately turned away as if he’d been punched in the face with sheer beauty. He made a very obvious fake cough to hide the blush working its way onto his face. Damien smiled and sat down. Now _that_ was the reaction he’d been looking for. Brian grabbed his backpack and stood up to leave, but Damien grabbed his wrist.

“Hey, sit for a minute. I wanna talk to you,” he said.

“Damien, come on, I gotta—”

“Would you just sit the fuck down already?” Brian reluctantly settled back into his chair and Damien leaned back in his.

“Look,” Damien said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said Monday or whatever. You know, about prom and how you felt like nothing ever happened for you and stuff. And I uh…” He scratched the back of his neck, his words abandoning him. He hated apologizing almost as much as this stupid guilty feeling. “I just. I didn’t want you thinking that all the shit we’ve done together the last couple years didn’t mean anything to me. This whole school is full of lameass fuckovens and you’re only like… well, you’re not even kind of a fuckoven, you’re actually really fucking rad. And, y’know, I kinda thought it might be badass if we were, y’know… boyfriends. Or something.”

Damien finally gave Brian the eye contact he hadn’t realized he’d been avoiding only to see Brian giving him a blank, shocked stare. The zombie quickly looked away again, grabbing his backpack.

“Sorry man, I really can’t be late to this class. I’ll see you around or something,” Brian said.

“...Dude what the actual fuck? You can’t just leave without—”

“I just uh. That’s a big decision to make on the spot, you know? Can you give me a little time to think about it?” Brian said.

Damien mindlessly put on his best fake smile. “Yeah, sure, totally. Talk to you later…?”

“Yeah,” Brian said, quickly making his exit. Damien watched him leave, completely still.

_Fuck._

That wasn’t the serious and thoughtful kind of _think about it,_ that was the I’m-super-uncomfortable-and-wanna-get-the-fuck-out-of-here kind of _think about it._ Satan below, Brian wasn’t just not interested in going to prom with Damien, he was fucking _avoiding_ him. That was… that was fucking insane. It all felt like the punchline to a joke Damien wasn’t getting, or some stupid nightmare.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, motherfucking mother bitch FUCK!” Damien flipped the table and the computer with it, leaving the room as quickly as his feet would allow him to. Then he set fire to someone’s locker—and then another locker, and then a classroom, and then an actual person—before locking himself in one of the bathroom stalls and sliding down against the wall to the floor.

There had to be some way to fix this, something Damien could do. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He and Brian were supposed to be together and be happy and be fucking awesome and eventually get married and have their honeymoon in the Maldives and—

Where did everything go so fucking wrong?

Damien forced his breathing back under control, pressing his fingers into his eyes to keep anything from dripping from them. There _had_ to be something he was missing. He just had to figure out what it was. After sorting through his panicked thoughts, he came to the conclusion that one of Brian’s friends was probably his best bet. They had to be. This had to work.

Damien didn’t know what he’d do if it didn’t.

**~B~**

Zoe had spent the last few hours watching Oz from a distance (through the many eyes growing in the walls and ceilings as her presence slowly infected reality around the school), waiting for him to enter a situation she could resolve. While waiting, she called up a few nightmare demons she knew from her time as an endless deity of despair and threw a rave in the OUTDOORS. In fact, she was so caught up in the moment of getting her first +2 FUN that she almost didn’t notice Oz sneaking around to the back of the giant tree with Faith as the rave wound down. She skittered over to them, hiding around the side of the tree as she waited for her moment.

“I was… pleasantly surprised?” Faith said, handing Oz a giant book. “I never imagined fanfiction like this to be so well-written or compelling. To have such emotional depth and yet to be so… disturbing.”

“Yeah, that’s Dragon Heat for you,” Oz said, rubbing the back of his neck a little. “I’m glad you enjoyed it though.”

“Me too. It’s nice to have a conversation topic we can both use for once,” Faith said.

“A-Actually, I got a cat recently,” Oz said. “She’s a little black-and-white kitten. I named her Dappleshade, um. Sort of after the Fighters series.”

“Oh, you’ve read the Fighters books too? I wish we’d talked about this before, we—”

“HA! Discussing fandoms, I see,” Leonard said, practically apparating from thin air to insert himself into the conversation. “But really? Fighters? That’s a _kids series._ I mean you could _at least_ be talking about Senior Regular Samurai Frogs or something, even if they are going to ruin it with a reboot sometime this summer.”

“We can enjoy whatever media we like, thank you,” Faith said.

“Yeah of course a _girl_ would say that,” Leonard said. “Everyone knows girls can’t be true fans, your opinions don’t count. You just like talking about fandom stuff _for attention._ ”

Faith gave Oz a deadpan look through her sunglasses. “He really _is_ as insufferable as you’ve said. I’ll have to count myself lucky that I haven’t interacted with him before.” She stood up, taking a brief glance at her phone and then looking at Leonard. “Duty calls. How Oz deals with you on a halfway consistent basis is beyond me. I suppose I don’t give him and his friends enough credit.”

“Ha!” Leonard said, his ugly, smug duck face instantly making bile well up in Zoe’s numerous mouths. “See! You’re running away ‘cause you know I’m right, just like a girl. And don’t even get me started on _you,”_ Leonard said, turning to Oz. “Making all your friends call you _they_ or whatever. That’s not even a real—”

Nope, nuh uh. Zoe was not going to let him go there.

Zoe might have been so, _so_ sick of Leonard’s misogynistic, transphobic, enbyphobic ass, but she had to admit that humiliating him did seem to provide lots of ways to impress potential prom dates. She had two options:

—Open a portal to a nightmare dimension and throw Leonard in.

—Suggest that Leonard only started engaging with the SRSF fandom when the new reboot became controversial “for attention” and he’s therefore a fake fan.

Zoe was a little more bold than smart at this particular moment in time (at least, she thought the second option was smart. It was kinda hard to tell), so she wordlessly opened a screaming portal into a hellish abyss under Leonard’s feet and walked over to Oz and Faith. Also she really wanted to send Leonard to a hellish abyss for a little while because it was funny and he deserved it.

“Sorry. I was just tired of hearing his voice,” Zoe said, looking at Faith’s frown. Right, she was a pacifist or something. “Don’t worry, it’ll spit him out in an hour or two.”

“...Heh. Thanks,” Oz said, the corners of their eyes crinkling in a smile.

“Well now that that’s resolved I really do have to go,” Faith said. “World to save and all that.” She leaned over to give Oz a quick hug.

“Alright. You need any help?” Oz asked.

Faith raised an eyebrow. “...Well. We have been having a difficult time discerning this particular foe’s weakness. Perhaps you could use your abilities to find out what he fears most? If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Sure,” Oz said. “Do you wanna tag along, Zoe? Assuming Faith’s okay with it.” Zoe’s eyes lit up as Faith nodded.

“OMG yes I’d love to come!” Zoe said. “C’mon, what are we waiting for?!”

And so, Zoe and Oz went with the Coven to perform a ruse and figure out the current Big Bad’s greatest fears. Sticking up for people against Leonard was always the answer—and the +2 SMARTS and +1 CHARM she got from her adventure with Oz wasn’t a bad reward either.

*******

“So…” Zoe said, walking back to class with Oz after their little escapade. “I had no idea you and Faith were friends! Or—wait. Are you friends? Are you _dating?_ Because I’ve thought to myself more than once, ‘you know, Zoe, he and Faith would be a really cute coup—’ they. I meant they, I am _so_ sorry!” Zoe covered her mouth, horrified.

“I use both, Zoe, it’s fine,” Oz said, glancing away and rubbing the back of his neck. “I-I um. I need to get to class though. I’ll see you later.” They walked off and turned down a side hallway, fiddling with their backpack straps to keep their fingers busy.

Zoe knew she wasn’t supposed to make a big deal about slip-ups like that because then it made the other person more uncomfortable, but it just—slipped out. More importantly, though: how did she not know that? 

How did she _not_ know Oz used he/they after that entire plotline where Oz defended her when her cultists were being idiots and wouldn’t stop calling her _it_ and Leonard was being… even more Leonard-y than usual? That… was mortifying to her. She wracked her eldritch mind, sifting through every memory she had with or about Oz, and it all came up blank. She never forgot a single _second_ of existence, and yet whenever Oz’s pronouns came up it turned into a slot machine. Not that there was anything wrong with being genderfluid, of course, but that’s not what Oz was. 

Eventually, she decided it might be a game mechanic not translating well. The Player Character’s pronouns were probably changeable, which was great for inclusivity but didn’t really work too well when applied to a linear narrative with no actual player choice. So maybe that one wasn’t _entirely_ on her. She still felt awful, though. She needed to do way, _way_ more research tonight so that she could keep up with the headcanons of this particular fanfic.

**~C~**

Scott was having trouble carrying all his sports equipment—not because it was too heavy, of course, but because he couldn’t see past the giant bag of balls in front of his face. He didn’t know what Vicky’s favorite sport to play was, so he’d brought his favorite football, his favorite soccerball, his favorite dodgeball, his favorite tennis ball, his favorite racquetball, his favorite lacrosse ball, his favorite badminton ball—

Scott stopped in his tracks as he ran into someone. He was able to stay perfectly upright, but the other person fell to the ground with a squeak as her books tumbled onto the floor.

“Sorry!” Scott said, lifting the bag up higher so that he could at least half-see. “...Oh! Hi, Vicky! I’ve been looking for you!”

“Oh. Hi, Scott. What… are you carrying?” Vicky brushed herself off and started putting books into her locker.

“They’re my balls!” Scott said, grinning. Vicky bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. “Recess is starting so I wanted to come find you and do some sports! But I didn’t know which sport was your favorite so I just brought all of them. I’ve got my favorite football and my favorite soccer ball and my—”

“That’s really sweet of you, Scott,” Vicky said, putting a finger to his lips to silence him, “but I have a really important test I need to study for. I’m really sorry, but I don’t think I have the time today.”

“Aw… okay, I understand,” Scott said, tail drooping. “Maybe we can play some other time?” He looked at her hopefully.

“We’ll have to see,” Vicky said, a small smile on her face. “I’ll see you later, Scott.”

“Okay,” Scott said, dejectedly turning around to bring his balls back to the gym. Scott thought for _sure_ Vicky wouldn’t be able to resist sports, but it looked like she liked something else better. Time for plan B—cheerleading!

*******

“Hey, Vicky! Vicky!” Scott had used his track-and-field skills to cross the school within a few seconds (after making a pit-stop at his locker to grab his favorite pompoms) and catch Vicky as she left third period.

“...Hi again, Scott.”

“So I thought since you wanted to study I could cheer you on so you could finish faster and then _you_ could cheer _me_ on while I study for sports!” Scott opened the top book on the stack Vicky was carrying to a random page so she could study and took a stance in the middle of the hallway. “HEY VICKY YOU’RE SO FINE, YOU’RE SO FINE YOU BLOW MY MIND HEY VICKY—”

“Scott.” Vicky set her books down and put a hand on Scott’s shoulder to stop him.

“Yeah?”

“It’s really sweet that you’re trying to help me study,” she said, smiling again. It seemed more strained this time, somehow. “But I’m already going to go study with a few friends right now.”

“Oh, okay! I can cheer for them too then!”

“Scott,” Vicky sighed, “We uh… we can study pretty well by ourselves. I bet there’s a lot of other people that could use your help, though! You should go where you’re most needed.”

“Oh,” Scott said, thinking. “That makes sense, but… I wanted to cheer with you, though.” His tail sagged again, heart torn between wanting to spend time with Vicky and wanting to be helpful and told he was a good boy. 

“Some other time, okay?” Vicky patted his arm, avoiding looking at Scott’s face as she picked her books back up and walked away.

...Even cheerleading didn’t work?

Now Scott was _really_ lost. How was he supposed to spend time with Vicky if she wasn’t going to do sports _or_ cheerleading? There had to be something he hadn’t tried yet, right? Something like…

Oh, of course! Food! Eating was _also_ one of the best things ever. Scott ran to the cafeteria to get their lunches ready.

*******

“Vicky Vicky Vicky Vicky Vicky!” Scott skidded to a halt in front of Vicky, holding two fully-loaded food trays. “I got us some healthy lunches so we can both build our muscles! Come on, come on, let’s go eat!”

“Oh, Scott, I um… I a-already ate,” Vicky said. Scott frowned and tilted his head—that nervous stutter wasn’t normal for her. Scott gave her a sniff.

“Um… no you didn’t,” Scott said. “At least, it doesn’t smell like you did.” Vicky’s eyes darted around as if searching for an escape route. Scott had to take a few seconds to think about what that could possibly mean, because Vicky for sure would never lie to him. “—Oh no! You must be _really_ hungry if you forgot you haven’t eaten yet! Come on, let’s get to the cafeteria so you can sit down. You can drink this on the way there to get your strength back up!”

Scott held out a cup of pinkish milk saturated with MuscleJuice. Vicky pushed his hand back gently.

“Oh that’s really sweet of you Scott, but I just remembered I promised to sit with some of my other friends today. And the table is already full with all of us there, so…”

“Oh. Okay. Promises are important.” Scott looked down at the ground and put the milk back on the tray. “You can at least take the tray, though! That way you don’t collapse from hunger on the way there. And this lunch is really good for you, too! It’s got everything you need to build super strong muscles.”

“Thanks, Scott. I really appreciate it.” She reached up and ruffled Scott’s hair with a smile before taking the tray from him. He grinned happily as he watched her leave, before realizing that he again wouldn’t get to spend time with Vicky, which made him sad. Still, it didn’t seem like he was being a bad friend; Vicky was just super busy today.

...Scott hoped the rest of the week would be better.

**~D~**

Vera’s target should have been rounding the corner any minute now, if the schedule data she’d squeezed out of Calculester was accurate. Hopefully this wouldn’t take _too_ much time out of her day.

As expected, Amira rounded the corner to put her math textbook into her locker. Vera was plainly in her line of sight, but she made a special effort to ignore her. Bitch. She was really going all in on being chased, wasn’t she? Vera grimaced and walked towards her, heels clicking against the floor to get her attention.

“Ahem.”

Amira withdrew her head from the locker and gave Vera a quick glance. “Do you need something from me?”

“Yes, actually,” Vera said, pulling out a mirror to check her makeup in an effort to not appear overly interested. “I have dinner reservations for us at 7 p.m. tonight—there are a handful of issues that have popped up in my Monstropolis… business network, and I wanted a second opinion before I took any action. Don’t be late.”

“I’m afraid I can’t make that, Vera,” Amira said, walking away. Vera stood still for a moment, dumbstruck, before walking after her.

“What do you mean _can’t make that?”_

“I already have a previous engagement tonight. I also don’t remember being your employee.” Amira kept walking, making no eye contact.

“An engagement with whom?”

“Myself.” Amira pulled out a strip of gum and popped it into her mouth. “I’m taking two important tests today followed by my last MCT exam. I want to get at least a 28 this time. After that, I am taking time off for myself to recover and unwind.”

“I just invited you to dinner!”

“To consult on your definitely-not-criminal enterprises. That’s work, Vera, and I already made a commitment to myself tonight in order to not overwork myself. If you’d like to make plans with me, please try and tell me at least a few days in advance. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a class to get to.” Amira kept walking as Vera froze in the hallway.

This had to be some ridiculous prank. _No one_ had the _audacity_ to turn down Vera Oberlin.

“Honey, you really have _no_ game sometimes.”

Vera spun around, sheer flabbergasted rage activating her gorgon gaze. Polly looked up at her, unimpressed.

“Girl did you just try to turn me to stone? I’m a ghost.”

“Polly, wha—why would you sneak up on me like that?! I could have killed you!”

“Buuuut you didn’t,” Polly said. “Watch and learn, Vera. I’m gonna show you how to score a date.”

Vera watched, every rational thought in her mind temporarily stunned, as Polly skipped up to Amira.

“Hey boo,” she said, slinging her arm around the fire nymph’s shoulders. “Packed day today, huh?”

“I suppose,” Amira said, rolling her eyes. “It’s rude to eavesdrop, you know.”

“Oh please, I eavesdrop on everyone all the time, you know that! Anyway—there’s this new club downtown that opens tonight and I was wondering if you wanted to go see how their booze is? The DJ is supposed to be _sick.”_

“Hmm.” Amira thought for a minute. “You know what, I like that idea. Pick me up after school?”

“Hell yeah. See you later, boo~” Polly winked at Vera as she wall-phased out of sight, leaving the gorgon utterly, completely dumbfounded.

*******

“Got us some more whiskey, babe,” Polly said, shimmying her way back to Amira. There was a sizable gap around her, mostly from people avoiding the little ribbons of fire that trailed around Amira as she danced. It both kept people out of her personal space and tended to mesmerize people. Polly, being a ghost, wasn’t deterred. She held a glass out.

“No thank you,” Amira said, pushing the glass back towards Polly without missing a step. “I don’t want to deal with a bad hangover tomorrow, I have some studying to do before I come to class. Go ahead and have it yourself.”

Polly frowned to herself. This was _not_ the kind of drunk she was trying to get Amira—she was in _tipsy but not_ drunk- _drunk_ phase right now, and that was at least six or seven steps away from _truth serum drunk_ phase.

“Oh c’monnnn boo, this is supposed to be your fun night! Live a little, girl!” Polly held out the whiskey again, only for Amira to dance away from her step by step.

“Nice try, Polly.” Amira gave Polly a knowing smirk and then disappeared into the crowd. Polly sighed, downing both glasses one after the other. Plan B—wine. Polly walked back towards the bar, staggering just a little. This whiskey _really_ hit the spot—she must have been on her tenth glass and she was already feeling it pretty strongly. Or was it her twelfth? Numbers were starting to get fuzzy. But, she still had work to do.

*******

Polly woke up in her bedroom, head ringing. Man, she must have really hit the liquor hard last night. She was also in bed, which meant that Amira must have come home with her. She smirked to herself. “Wakey wakey, boo.” She reached over to the other side of the mattress and found it empty.

Polly stood up and checked the bathroom—Amira wasn’t in the shower—and then looked in the kitchen. Did she just leave without saying goodbye? Rude. 

Polly then looked down and realized she was still wearing all her clothes from last night. So maybe Amira _hadn’t_ spent the night. Aaaaand she clearly didn’t remember much about last night, especially about any important conversations she might-or-might-not have had with Amira, which means that she hadn’t actually accomplished anything. Damn. She pulled out her phone to find a text waiting for her.

_You were pretty drunk by the end of the night so I called us a cab and got you settled, hope you don’t mind. I had fun, thanks for helping me unwind. See you at school._

Well—maybe not _nothing_ then. Still, she wanted to figure out what was going on so it looked like she was going to have to use plan B—drugs. Now she just had to figure out which ones.


	4. Suitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miranda assesses her first potential marriage candidate, Amira; Liam and Calculester have a conversation with Oz; Zoe visits the shop; Damien goes to Vicky for advice.

_Week 1, Thursday—Lunch_

**~A~**

“Ozzy,” Amira said, grabbing Oz by the shoulder as he passed by her, “I forgot to get taco sauce. You wouldn’t mind grabbing me some while you’re up there, would you?”

“Sure thing,” Oz said, smiling. They grabbed their lunch from the counter, snatched a few extra packets of taco sauce, and returned to Amira’s table only to find it had been surrounded by buff, surly-looking merpeople.

“Shoo, peasant,” Miranda said, flicking her hand dismissively. “I need to have a private conversation with Amira here.” Amira shot Oz a tired but resigned glance and the fearling padded over to an adjacent table, watching their friend for any sign of trouble.

“And to what do I owe the pleasure of dining with her majesty?” Amira sighed, half-attempting a smile.

“Dining with me? Oh, Amira, you’re so silly! Aren’t her jokes funny?” The merpeople all laughed on cue. “No, of course we won’t be dining. My servants will eat that for you!” Miranda snapped her fingers and one of her goons snatched Amira’s tray. She leaned on the table with one elbow, looking increasingly bored.

“Now—where was I…?”

“You were going to tell me why you’re interrupting my lunch,” Amira sighed.

“Oh, yes! It has finally come time for I, Princess Miranda Vanderbilt of the Merkingdom, to choose a suitor—and I have selected you out of all the riff-raff as a possible candidate! Isn’t this the most exciting news you’ve heard in your entire pathetic existence?!”

“It’s… absolutely thrilling,” Amira said.

“I know! So, Amira, tell me—what daring feats of heroism, cunning, romance, and ruthlessness will you accomplish over the next slightly-more-than-two-weeks to woo me and win my hand in marriage?”

“Nothing,” Amira said.

“Nothing! Wait… nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing as in… nothing?”

“Yes. Nothing.”

Miranda blinked a few times, gazed at her own reflection in her confusion spoon, and then beckoned a mermaid over to whisper in her ear. She cleared her throat.

“So—are you insinuating that you have so great a royal pedigree that there is no need for you to demonstrate your love for me?” Miranda asked.

“...No,” Amira said. “I just… simply want what’s best for the merkingdom, and know for a fact that there are better suitors out there for you. It would be a heinous crime to trap Miranda Vanderbilt in a marriage with someone so unworthy.”

“This is true,” Miranda said, nodding to herself, “But—you are one of the four most sought-after monsters in the school this year! Surely that means you have a royal lineage of some merit?”

“Most sought after, hm?” Amira said. “So the moment we announce we aren’t chasing the lot of you around, suddenly everyone’s falling over themselves to take us to prom?”

Miranda thought to herself for a moment before nodding enthusiastically.

Amira chuckled to herself, little flames appearing in the air near her fingers. She glared at the merpeople around her and then sighed. “Yes, well, I suppose you’ve figured out my royal secret. However—there is one crucial detail you’ve overlooked.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“I’m a fire nymph,” Amira said, pointing to her fiery hair. “I don’t do well underwater. And what use would a princess of the Merkingdom be if she couldn’t live underwater?”

“My goodness, you’re right!” Miranda gasped. “Gerald! Why didn’t you think of this before?!”

Gerald backed away slowly and Miranda pointed at him. “Put him in the iron maiden immediately! I’m surrounded by incompetence!” As some of the merpeople dragged Gerald away, Miranda snapped her fingers and another set of Merpeople grabbed Amira by the shoulders. “Well, thank you for being honest. Guards, get this peasant out of my sight.”

“Wh—hey! This was my table, you can’t just—”

“Hush, peasant. I have to rethink a few things,” Miranda said. The goons dragged Amira away from the table and tossed her on the floor ungracefully. Amira growled to herself, brushing off her jacket as she stood up.

“...I saved you a taco,” Oz said, holding it out to her. The flames spiraling around Amira slowly calmed down, and she smiled a little.

“And this is what makes you my favorite monster,” Amira said, giving Oz a kiss on the cheek as she took that taco from them. Oz shrank back, embarrassed.

“Amira, y-you can’t—don’t just do that, why would you—”

“Best friend privileges,” Amira said, laughing. “Thank you, though, really. Ugh, it hasn’t even been a week and already everything’s gone crazy.”

“Crazy’s… pretty normal here, Amira,” Oz said.

“Mm. You’re right,” Amira sighed. She looked back at Miranda and rolled her eyes. “Though unfortunately I’ve lost any and all desire to socialize. Do you mind if we take a raincheck on lunch?” Oz nodded silently. “Thanks, Ozzy. I’ll catch you tomorrow.”

**~B~**

Oz really didn’t mind eating lunch alone—he liked spending time with his friends, sure, but he also cherished his alone time. So he was just a little miffed when Calculester took a seat at the table. And then, to make things more strange than they already had been this week, Liam strolled up to him and bowed.

“Ohayou gozaimasu, sensei,” Liam said, smiling. Oz blinked.

“You uh… haven’t called me that in a long time,” Oz said, chuckling nervously.

“I… I know,” Liam said, sitting down next to him. Oz scooched away just a little, personal space bubble invaded. “Calculester and I had something we wanted to discuss with you.”

“O-Oh?”

“Yes. By analyzing data from previous proms, we have come to the conclusion that we are not leading successful lives as organic lifeforms.”

“H-How do you mean?” Oz asked, resisting the urge to start fiddling with the hem of their cardigan. 

“Judging by the societal importance given to prom by our peers, it follows that having a successful romantic outcome from high school is essential to living a successful life,” Calculester said.

“Well um—that’s not really—”

“From this data, I have deduced that I have the highest chance of success with you, as out of you and your friends you have spent the largest fraction of your proms with me at 13%. I also considered this outcome as being most likely as I am your second most-dated classmate, behind Zoe at 53% and above Miranda at 11%, Liam at 10%, Scott at 7%, Damien at 4%, Polly at 2%, and Faith and Valerie at one date each.”

“That’s very… very thorough information… you have there… about me…” Oz said, repeatedly buttoning and unbuttoning the bottom button on their cardigan. Liam had his face resting in his hands and let out a long, dramatic sigh.

“...I am confused,” Calculester said. “I thought being upfront and honest was a key element to being a good person.”

“There’s a difference between dishonesty and tact, Calculester,” Liam said, pushing his glasses up the bridge on his nose. “But that’s a conversation for another time. What we’re trying to convey, sensei, is that… perhaps we’ve both been a bit, ah—oblivious. And at the risk of sounding cliché, you are a rather amazing person. I’ve still been practicing what you taught me, you know—I’ve always been meaning to show you how much I’ve improved but I… never got around to it, I suppose. That’s beside the point, though. What I’m trying to say is—perhaps you felt a spark somewhere these past years, maybe I did, and we just failed to notice it.”

“I do not believe Oz sparks, as they are not a machine,” Calculester said. Liam gave an even deeper sigh.

“So, sensei—what do you think? Would you allow me to take you out on a date and see what might happen? ...Ironically, of course, dates are aggressively heteronormative. But you get my point.”

“I would also like to request a date with you, Friend Oz, as I also find you to be very likeable and I have shared many exciting life experiences with you,” Calculester said.

Oz’s fingers had gone from buttoning and unbuttoning to desperately gripping the fabric of his shirt. He knew it was probably all in his head, but it felt like the room was getting smaller and that Liam and Calculester were leaning closer and closer, waiting for him to answer. It didn’t help that he was literally backed into a corner, having chosen a corner table out of his general distaste for crowds. He pried his fingers off his shirt and instead latched them onto his knees, trying to steady himself.

“L-L-Look, u-um…” He struggled to choke out the words, his metaphorical mouth running dry. “I um. I r-really enjoy the time we spent together, y’know, and um. Um, uh. And I really l-like both of you but um, I-I’m n-not doing the chasing thing this year. I’m trying to… trying to, um… ch-change some things about myself and I-I don’t think I um. That you uh. That uh—”

The conversation was quickly spiraling out of their control. They stood up abruptly. “I just don’t feel that way about you guys but I really like you as friends and I have to go now bye!”

Oz sprinted out of the room as fast as their legs would carry them, leaving Liam and Calculester (and half of the rest of the cafeteria) to watch them silently.

“...It appears this attempt was not successful,” Calculester said, :( face blipping onto his screen. “And Friend Oz left before I could initiate plan B and ask for a wacky solution to our current inquiry.”

“Your complete reliance on statistics is going to get you nowhere,” Liam said, rolling his eyes and walking away as well. Calculester remained at the table, hands folded pensively, for the next several hours. To passerby it probably looked like he was depressed, but he was actually triple-checking all his statistics for flawed data. And, when nothing came up, he tried to make some logical sense out of the previous conversation and Oz’s unpredictable behavior and failed. So for Calculester that was pretty much the same thing as depressed.

Meanwhile, Liam found an empty corner of the bathroom to brood in. Oz’s reaction wasn’t exactly what Liam would call ambiguous; if he’d ever had a shot with the fearling, that day had long passed. It was an odd sensation for Liam, who was never one to shy away from the things he loved or trying something new. He wasn’t one to let life pass him by and yet here he was with life having passed him by.

And maybe there was a twinge of heartache there too—nothing so drastic as heartbreak, but there was certainly something there. Maybe Liam really had been oblivious, too wrapped up in his own head to appreciate Oz’s artistic, quiet soul. He had felt it when Oz agreed to be his yaoi instructor, especially during their cuddling practice sessions. Sure, Oz had a tendency to alter his personality significantly from time to time in order to get a prom date and had a reputation for being horny just like his friends, but there really had been something kind and genuine in him that Liam had failed to take notice of before. And such a clear rejection, a closed door… stung in a way Liam wasn’t expecting.

This whole affair was an enigma now, and one Liam was bent on solving before prom came. He couldn’t help but see the irony that an immortal like himself was now keenly feeling the constraints of time.

**~C~**

So maybe Zoe spent just a little too much time geeking out over the new SRSF trailer that dropped last period and was late to lunch, which meant that someone had already taken Oz’s table and therefore Zoe couldn’t sit there. Which was annoying, because she was really looking forward to her first lunch event, but at the same time it did give her the opportunity to check out the shop.

There weren’t any special Oz event items that she could see, unfortunately—unless she wanted to gamble on a Gift That Keeps On Giving, which she decided against this time around—which meant a normal stat item would have to do. Unfortunately the wiki didn’t have any information on what stats the Player Characters appreciated, damn them, so she’d spent the entire previous night making educated guesses as to what their preferred stats might be.

Vicky was tough to figure out, but eventually Zoe settled on a Vera-like spread of +SMARTS, +FUN, and a little +MONEY. She’d pegged Amira for +SMARTS and +BOLDNESS, and Brian for +BOLDNESS and +CHARM (though maybe there was +FUN in there too?). Which left Oz, whom she was fairly confident appreciated +CREATIVITY and +CHARM. And considering Zoe’s +CREATIVITY stat had started out pretty high, she took the Sexy Fake Latin Accent.

“You know, Zoe, it’s funny,” Valerie said, giving her a curious glance as she handed over the cassette tape and snatched the money out of Zoe’s tentacle, “In all these years of high school I’ve never seen you buy something from me, but here you are today. Why the change of heart? Trying to romance someone~?”

“Yup!” Zoe said, nonchalant enough to make Valerie blink. “I’m going for Oz’s route this time. You don’t happen to know their needed stat spread, do you?”

“...Yeah no,” Valerie said, confused.

“Oh well. Worth a shot. Thanks for this!” Zoe said, jiggling the tape and prancing away. Valerie just shrugged and started packing up her shop as the bell rang.

**~D~**

Damien wasn’t freaking out, and he sure as hell wasn’t trying to keep himself from hyperventilating because Brian had made some excuse to Vicky right as Damien came into the lunchroom and split. He wasn’t here to talk to Brian today anyway, he was here to talk to one of his friends. So it didn’t really matter.

Vicky would work just fine for what he needed anyway, so Damien walked up to her table with all his usual bravado that he definitely wasn’t faking today because his nerves were eating him alive, and tossed his tray down across from Vicky’s.

“Sup,” he said. Vicky gave him an almost tired-looking glare.

“That quickly, huh?” Vicky said, twirling her fork in a pile of spaghetti and only half-paying attention to Damien.

“...Huh?”

“Just yesterday you’re asking Brian to be your boyfriend and when that doesn’t work out you immediately come crawling over to me,” Vicky said. Her voice was more condescending than Damien thought possible from the normally bubbly monster, and—like everything else this whole fucking week—it threw Damien off balance.

“Wait—that’s not—wait he told you? I mean, I didn’t—”

Vicky picked up her tray and stood up to leave. Only then did the frustrated rage Damien should have had from the beginning flare up.

“Okay, I am sick of you guys’s bullshit. Would you just sit down for five minutes so I can talk to you? You’re only mostly a loser, don’t make me lose my good opinion of you. I’m only here because you’re friends with Brian anyway.”

Vicky raised an eyebrow at him in the most dramatic, annoying way at Damien and he for once swallowed his urge to set the table on fire and throw it at her. She slowly slipped back into her seat, staring straight at him as if trying to read his expression.

“Okay. You have my attention.”

“Thank you,” Damien said, tail whipping impatiently. He opened his mouth to start talking before realizing that he hadn’t actually thought about what he was going to say, so he just sort of sat there with his mouth hanging open like an idiot.

“You said you were here to talk about Brian, right? So—”

“Shut up already, I was getting to that!” Damien growled, flames sparking at his fingertips. Control was not his forte, and it was taking every ounce of willpower he had not to torch this stupid Frankenstein. “I just—look. You’re right, I asked Brian to be my boyfriend yesterday and he just kinda… ran off. And he’s been avoiding me all day, so I wanted to ask you what the hell’s up since you’re friends with him and apparently he tells you this kind of stuff.”

“I thought he already explained to you guys that we aren’t going to prom this year,” Vicky said.

“I fucking know, okay?! And I get why he’s upset about that and I honestly don’t know how it got to that point but I just—I—GAHHHH!”

Finally reaching his breaking point, Damien grabbed his tray, set it on fire, and then pitched it on some poor monster that now had molten plastic and burning leftovers dripping down his face. As he ran off screaming, Damien covered his face with his hands and rested his elbows on the table.

“I really like him, okay? Like… really like him. And I get that I’ve been ignoring him the whole rest of the school year and I honestly can’t figure out why ‘cause Brian’s fucking awesome and I’m trying to fix things because I fucking love this stupid zombie but I don’t know what I’m doing because he’s right about me not even knowing his goddamn fucking favorite color and—and…”

Fuck no, Damien LaVey was not about to start fucking tearing up in the middle of the cafeteria. He clenched his jaw, dug his nails into his scalp. This was frustration, not panic.

“...You’re being honest right now, aren’t you?” Vicky said. Suddenly her whole demeanor was different; her eyes softer, her voice quieter. Damien looked at her.

“Does it look like I’m fucking with you?”

Slowly, a smile came onto Vicky’s face. She reached into her backpack, pulled out a notebook, and carefully folded a page along the tear line before ripping it out like a total nerd. Then she pulled out a pen and started writing.

“...What the hell are you doing now?”

“Brian’s always the one chasing you and doing the things you like, so if you want to prove to him that you’re serious you’re gonna have to do some stuff he enjoys for a change. So, on Fridays he has fourth period free and usually goes out to eat—he’s kind of a foodie. You’re gonna take him out for lunch. I found this cute little diner downtown I’ve been meaning to show him—and you’re not going to burn it down—so you’ll start there. Then you’ll convince him to skip fifth and sixth period because he really doesn’t need those classes anyway and play something chill with him in the library, like Cavecraft or Sundew Valley or something. And before seventh period starts, ‘cause he has an important test tomorrow, you can go outside for a while and do some cloud watching. It’s his favorite way to get over his text anxiety. Got it? Also, his favorite color’s pomegranate red. He just doesn’t like wearing red because he says it makes him look like the Grinch.”

Vicky slid him the piece of paper, which now had a very detailed itinerary sketched on it. Damien took it and blinked, still trying to process everything, as Vicky got up a second time and walked over so that she was looking down at him.

“...Thank you,” Damien said, unable to say anything else.

“You’re welcome,” Vicky said. “You make Brian really happy, you know? I’m glad you finally came to your senses and realized how lucky you are.” Aaaand the condescension was back, if just a little. Damien gave her a half-hearted glare.

“Oh, one more thing,” Vicky said, leaning in close to Damien’s face with a painfully cheery smile on her face. “I’m very fond of Brian. He’s like a little brother to me. So, hurt him and I will personally tear off your arms and drown you in holy water. Mkay?” Then, being the stupidly bold motherfucker she was, Vicky booped Damien on the nose with her finger and waltzed away. “Have fun on your date!”

The only reason Damien didn’t immediately bite her whole hand off was because she’d actually been helpful and he was just a little impressed by how gutsy this girl was. He looked over the paper he’d been given, scratching his head. All this seemed really… boring. Damien had seen Brian in action—surely he wasn’t into lame shit like this? Maybe Vicky was fucking with him after all. Or maybe Brian just had another side to him like Damien’s now not-so-secret passion for beauty, which was entirely possible considering how little Damien actually knew about him.

...Well. If this is what it took.

Still, Damien had way overshot his feelings quota for the week and was just about ready to get some of his frustration out, so he pocketed the itinerary and ordered three bowls of knives from the lunch counter before pelting them at unsuspecting cafeteria-goers. As everyone scrambled out of the room to avoid being stabbed to death, Damien set the cafeteria on fire. He stood in the middle of the chaos, feeling a lot more like himself. He sighed, the familiar sound of fire alarms and panicked screaming helping him clear his thoughts. He smiled a little.

Brian did like him back. And his favorite color was red. Damien looked down at his hands and chuckled to himself.


	5. Two Steps Backward, One Step Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vera tries to get Amira back into the fold a second time; Miranda courts Vicky; Damien goes on his date with Brian.

_Week 1, Friday—Morning_

**~A~**

Amira truly was _irksome._ And not only was she irksome, but maybe Vera had come to rely on her more than she realized. The “business meeting” she’d invited Amira to had very much been real, and had very much _not_ gone according to plan. It ended up turning into a shootout, which wasn’t unusual, except that with no backup Vera had been forced to retreat and lost a significant portion of her territory to the Clown Syndicate. All because that stupid nymph wanted to go out clubbing.

So as angry— _livid_ was a better word—as Vera was, she was still a rational person and recognized that getting Amira back into the fold as quickly as possible was her best course of action. So if she had to keep playing this stupid game for a little bit, so be it. She sidled up next to Amira as she walked toward her next class.

“Amira,” Vera said, keeping her voice as even as possible. Amira let out an exasperated sigh as if Vera was some silly fangirl and she put every ounce of concentration she had into keeping her gorgon gaze from activating. “Do you have a moment?”

“I doubt you’ll leave me alone until I give you one, so sure.”

Vera’s eye twitched a little and she took a deep breath. “I have a _very_ important meeting with the Clown Syndicate Sunday evening that I’d like for you to attend with me. Hopefully that’s enough advance notice for you, hm?”

“You know, with how much you complain about people talking down to you—which is a valid grievance—I thought you of all people would know condescension isn’t attractive. But clearly you also don’t know how to take a hint, so.”

“I’m sorry, _what?”_

Amira turned to face her, and now Vera could see the unhidden frustration, tiredness, and boredom on her face. “Fine. Let me rephrase this in terms you can understand then,” she said, mimicking Vera’s previous tone in the most aggravating manner possible. “This relationship is no longer profitable for me. Do you understand those words? Hm?”

Vera grabbed her by the front of her shirt, and she didn’t so much as flinch. “Listen here, you useless sack of cinders,” she said, “I am _Vera Oberlin._ Just how _stupid_ are you?”

“Pretty stupid, considering how long I let this continue,” Amira said. “If we’re talking solely about money? I know you skim off my bank account, and you take a great deal more than your fair share on anything business-related we do together. But I don’t even care about that, because I’m perfectly capable of financial success by myself and don’t need a partner for that. What I look for in a partner is someone that can give me emotional support and will enjoy life with me. You, however, care about literally _nothing_ other than yourself, are devoid of even basic compassion, and have proven time and time again that you can’t be trusted with my most trivial secrets, let alone any serious ones. So tell me, Vera, what on earth do you have to offer me?”

That was _it._

Vera’s eyes turned red, and all her snakes hissed at once. There was a matching flash of crimson in Amira’s eyes, and then…

Nothing happened.

“...You just tried to kill me,” Amira said. Her voice was deadpan, emotionless.

Vera took a step backward. She _never_ lost control like that. She had to be so, _so_ careful around Valerie, around her father, around her friends, even herself. How could she just…?

“I… I’m sorry,” Vera said, uncharacteristically mousy. “That. That was completely unintentional, I did _not—_ wait. How are you not—”

“Thank you for showing me your true colors, Vera,” Amira said, nodding darkly and turning around.

“Amira. Amira wait—”

A wall of flames erupted between Vera and Amira and the gorgon stumbled backward. She stood there for a while, the sprinklers soaking her expensive clothes, before she walked away and sat in her car.

Vera Oberlin had, without a doubt, fucked up.

She hated crying. It made other people perceive her as weak, which was the last thing she was. But here, in the safety of the heavily-tinted windows of her car, it was something she felt she had to do.

The horror set in. How was she supposed to talk to her sister now? Or anyone she cared about for that matter, if she couldn’t trust herself not to turn them into statues? _You’re overreacting,_ she told herself, _it was a momentary lapse. Once you calm down, it’ll be fine._

It didn’t make her feel much better. Here alone without all her carefully acquired social clout, she finally forced herself to consider that maybe the decay of her and Amira’s relationship _was_ her fault, that maybe Amira was right and she _was_ selfish and arrogant to a fault. There are downfalls to believing you’re perfect in every way.

“Hey boo~”

Vera screamed and accidentally smacked her head against the window. “POLLY! You _cannot_ just _do_ that!”

“Oh please, you spy on everyone literally all the time, you don’t get to talk about… privacy… wait, V, were you just—are you crying?”

“Mind your own fucking business, Polly.” She wiped her face angrily.

“Wait, wait, oh my god, Vera, are you okay? What happened?”

“I told you to mind your own business!”

“Was—did Amira turn you down again?” Polly said, ignoring her. Vera stayed silent. “She uh. Well, she was in a really bad mood when I talked to her. I tried to get her to do some Ecstasy with me and she turned me down _hard,_ if that makes you feel any better.”

They sat in the car in awkward silence for a while, Vera not moving an inch and Polly glancing around the car without making eye contact.

“This isn’t working,” Vera said after a while.

“What’s not working?”

“Us and Amira. We need to try something different.”

“Um… okay,” Polly said, finally looking at her. “What did you have in mind?”

“We should talk to her friends, try and figure out what we can do to mend bridges. We could start with Vicky, she seems like she’d be the most helpful.”

“Uh… okay?” Polly said. “Sure, we can do that I guess. Seriously though, Vera, what happened?”

“I need some alone time right now, Polly. If you don’t mind.” She clenched her jaw, looked straight ahead. She had some serious thinking to do. This was a _real_ problem now, and one she couldn’t afford to pay half attention to. The clowns could wait.

“...Yeah. Okay.” Polly slowly drifted out through the door of the car, staring hard at Vera as she did so. Vera turned the ignition and drove home.

**~B~**

Vicky checked the fifth box on her planner for the day and set her stack of books on the bench beside herself before taking out a hair tie and pulling her frizzy curls away from her face. Man, senior year was stressful. This last week seemed like it was just test after test—and that wasn’t counting the internship applications and college admission essays she’d been tackling at home every night. It was every kind of exhausting. She reached into her pocket for the portable battery back she kept around for a little boost, but it looked like she’d already consumed all the charge it had. Perfect.

Vicky was so consumed with double-checking her schedule for the day before the next period started that she didn’t notice she was being surrounded by half a dozen mer-goons until it was far too late. She glanced up from her planner to see Miranda beaming down at her.

“Oh, hi Miri. Can I help you with something?”

“Yes, actually, you can! How thoughtful of you for asking!” Miranda said. “It has finally come time for I, Miranda Vanderbilt, to marry—and I have selected you as a possible candidate! Isn’t that just thrilling?!”

Vicky plastered on a smile as she picked her books back up. “Oh, wow, that’s… really flattering, Miranda, heheheh. Um, thank you—that’s sweet of you, really—but I can’t because um… well, uh—I-I’m actually seeing someone right now! Yeah, that’s what’s going on, definitely.”

Miranda gasped loudly. “You mean—you’re in love?!”

“Um… yes?”

Vicky nearly dropped her books to cover her ears as Miranda squealed. “Oh Vicky, I’m so happy for you! Who is it?! You must tell me!”

“I-It’s um… well, see, it's actually a forbidden romance so I can’t really reveal who they are, for their own safety,” Vicky said. Miranda squealed even higher, if that was possible. Vicky was fairly certain she could feel a thin trickle of blood dripping out of her ears.

“A star-crossed romance, pure and passionate yet doomed from the start! They’re royalty from a rival kingdom, aren’t they? Oh this is so _exciting!_ You _must_ come to the merkingdom later so I can teach you all the appropriate napkin folds for your secret rendezvous.”

“That sounds really nice Miri,” Vicky chuckled.

“I know! And don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. And you’ve also inadvertently revealed who _my_ true love is by proxy, which is even _more_ exciting!”

“Oh? And who is that?”

“Oz, of course,” Miranda said. Vicky’s smile immediately dropped. “They’re the only suitable candidate remaining, so by process of elimination it _must_ be them.”

“Oh, Miranda—I don’t really think—”

“Well, farewell Vicky! I’m off to see if I can find Oz before next period. I wish you the best of luck!” She turned around and her mergoons all fell in line around her.

“Miranda wait, that’s not a good idea, he—”

The goons in the back shoved Vicky away as she tried to follow, making her scatter her books all over the floor. Damn it. She made a mental note to herself to call Oz later and warn him as she picked up her things.

**~C~**

Pomegranate wasn’t really a shade Damien used often—it was a little too purplish to match his skin tone well unless he messed around with his other colors as well—but he could make pretty much any shade of red work if he put the effort in, which he had _definitely_ done this morning. He looked fucking awesome, and Vicky had confirmed for him that Brian totally liked him back. He probably just got shy from Damien _finally_ asking him out, which was kinda his own fault anyway so it didn’t really matter. Everything was gonna be totally fine, so this stupid nauseous feeling in his stomach should _not_ have been there and he was about ready to hack his midsection open with an axe to make it go away.

He kept going over the itinerary in his head so he wouldn’t have to pull it out of his pocket during the date like a fucking loser. Diner, Sundew Valley, cloud watching. Diner, Sundew Valley, cloud watching. Diner, arson, cloud watching. Murder, arson, and more arson. No, shit, why did he always circle back to arson? He pulled the now horribly crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and checked it one last time before intercepting Brian on his way to the food line.

“Hey noob,” he said. Brian very obviously avoided making eye contact with him, which was _really_ frustrating.

“Hey.”

“C’mon, we got shit to do today,” Damien said, giving Brian a gentle shoulder-shove in the direction of the exit.

“Huh? Look, Damien, I was just about to get lunch—”

“Yeah, I know, we’re going out and getting something.”

Brian finally looked at him, eyebrows twisting in confusion. Damien sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Look, just—this isn’t about the whole boyfriend thing, alright?” _Even though it totally was._ “If you don’t wanna answer me, don’t answer me. But the food here sucks and I’m already fucking bored, so if I don’t have someone to talk to on the car ride I’m probably gonna end up getting arrested again. So would you just come and get food with me? I know you can’t like the shit they serve here any better than I do.”

Brian opened and closed his mouth a few times like he was looking for an excuse to say no, and Damien dug his nails into his palms. He tried to come up with more excuses to get him to come, but nothing else came to mind.

“C’mon. At least give me a chance,” Damien said, voice a dozen decibels lower than it usually was. It was the only thing he could think to say; and he wasn’t gonna back down from it either, goddamn it, so he squared his jaw and looked Brian right in the fucking eyes. And he didn’t turn away even when Brian started searching his eyes for something in the most awkward, uncomfortable, piercing way possible.

“...Sure,” Brian said at last, shrugging as if that entire exchange hadn’t happened and they were somehow having a casual conversation. Damien mentally smacked himself to kick himself back into gear.

“Right. Cool. Car’s this way.”

*******

Why the fuck was he still nervous?

The diner he was supposed to go to was fifteen minutes away and he’d spent the first five minutes of that drive in awkward, painful silence with Brian next to him in the passenger seat. Partly because he kept zoning out in existential terror over what Brian was thinking right now and partly because his goddamn words had decided to completely fucking abandon him today.

“So,” Brian said. “You said you wanted to have me around to talk to so you don’t get bored and you haven’t said a thing since I got in the car. You aren’t planning to murder me and dump my body somewhere outside of town, are you?” There was a joking lilt to his voice, but it didn’t come across well in the awkward silence.

“If I was gonna kill you it wouldn’t be that subtle, dude,” Damien said. _Wow, great way to put him at_ fucking _ease, Damien. Nice going_ , he thought _._ “But right, the talking thing. Uh… how’s… school?”

_Idiot._

Brian gave him an almost-concerned glance. “...Are you my dad now or something? ‘Oh how was school today, son?’”

_Don’t make that joke don’t make that joke don’t—_

“Well if you wanna call me daddy, I ain’t gonna stop you,” Damien said.

_Why the fuck would I say that ughhhhh—_

Brian was silent for a second before busting out into hysterical, tear-jerking laughter. Damien slowly joined in as well, and suddenly all the stupid butterflies were gone and he felt like a normal person again for the first time this week.

“Put some fucking music on, man,” Brian said through his laughter, and Damien gladly cranked up his speakers and started blasting _Every Swear Word I Know._

*******

“Alrighty, what can I get you gentlemen today?” The waitress asked.

“The chicken cordon bleu sounds really good,” Brian said, scanning his menu up and down. “With the… rosemary red potatoes, I think.”

“Mm, excellent choice,” the waitress said. “And for you?”

Damien had been staring at Brian since they’d entered the diner, trying to read his face and figure out if he’d made any progress, and thus hadn’t actually looked at the menu yet. He flicked his eyes down to it and said the first thing that seemed remotely interesting.

“I’ll take the… uh… blackened steak. With fries, I guess.”

“Perfect. And how do you want that cooked, honey?”

“...Blackened,” Damien said.

“Well that’s the seasoning, I meant rare, medium rare…?”

“ _Blackened,”_ he reiterated, glaring at the waitress. She thought to herself for a moment and then nodded.

“Right, right, I get it now. I’ll have that right out for you boys.”

She took the menus and without anything else for them to look at, Brian and Damien were forced to look at each other. It turned into some weird, awkward staring contest. They had been just fine a second ago, hadn’t they? It was like Brian had reminded himself he wasn’t supposed to enjoy this or something, and Damien had remembered that he didn’t really know what the fuck he was doing. As soon as the food came out Damien impaled the steak with a knife and tore a chunk out of it with his teeth. It had been charred to a crisp and was tough as a rock, just the way Damien liked it, and the seasoning really was pretty good. Maybe Vicky knew what she was talking about after all.

“How’s your blue chicken whatever?” Damien said in between bites.

“Pretty damn good, actually,” Brian said. “Thanks for taking me here. I haven’t actually been to this diner before.”

“Yeah, well, you know me. I always appreciate… food… and stuff,” Damien said. He immediately tore off another chunk of steak as Brian squinted at him in suspicion. “Anyway uh. I’ll pay, don’t worry about it. Least I could for you keeping me from dying of boredom.”

Brian snorted a little. “You sure?”

“I’m a fucking prince, dude, it’s not like I’m strapped for cash.”

“Fair enough,” Brian shrugged. “Thanks.”

Shit, this still felt awkward. What was he missing?

*******

“C’monnnn, Slow-Acting Poisons is a bullshit class anyway. If you wanna kill someone you can just shoot ‘em in the face,” Damien said.

“What do you even wanna play, anyway?” Brian said. “Federation of Fables?”

“I was thinking more like Sundew Valley or something,” Damien said.

“...Hold up. _You_ play Sundew Valley?”

“Yeah,” Damien said, glancing away because he was _totally_ lying about that. “Don’t act so surprised, I can like other stuff besides first-person shooters.”

Brian seemed skeptical, the bastard, but after a while he gave Damien another one of his world-famous shrugs. “Alright. I’ll bite.”

Damien dragged him up to the library and started a multiplayer game. It turned out that Sundew Valley was some kind of farming simulator, and also that Brian apparently knew it inside and out; including exactly how to start up a new farm. He had half of it cleared and was heading out to town for seeds before Damien had finished figuring out the controls.

“I only used half the cash, so you can buy whatever when you’re ready,” Brian said.

“Uh, right. Sure,” Damien said, trying to keep up. He was not going to lose at a fucking _farming_ game.

“...Peppers, huh?”

“Yeah,” Damien said. “I’m gonna make ‘em into pepper spray and fuck up all the villagers’ eyes,” he said.

Brian chuckled a little. “Don’t think you can do that in this game, man.”

“Watch me.”

“Well you do that, I’m gonna go hit a few levels of the mines,” Brian said.

Damien glanced over at him, and for once Brian actually seemed relaxed. He was leaning back in his chair, fingers whizzing across the keys without him having to pay any actual attention to what was going on onscreen. He just had his normal, lazy half-smile on instead of that painfully fake grin he’d been wearing lately. The tension had left his muscles. Damien wouldn’t call him _happy,_ per se—Brian wasn’t an excitable person by any stretch of the imagination—but he looked at peace. Something about it made Damien feel a little better.

“You’re gonna pass out if you stay up any later,” Brian said. Damien quickly snapped his gaze away from Brian.

“Right, yeah. Sorry.” He started moving his character back towards the house and then checked the actual time on the bottom of the computer screen. “You wanna wrap up?”

“Sure,” Brian shrugged.

“Cool. C’mon, this way.”

Brian just followed him out of the school again instead of arguing this time. He mimicked Damien wordlessly as he laid down on the grass right outside the building.

Damien had way more energy than most people. He was almost always _super_ angry about something, and if he wasn’t he was hyped about something, or a fucking bundle of nerves like he had been this whole week. But somehow, right now, staring at the sky like some moonstruck idiot, he just felt… calm. It was weird as hell, but not unpleasant. His thoughts came through at a manageable pace for once.

“It was Vicky, right?” Brian said, not looking away from the clouds.

“Yeah,” Damien said. _Honesty’s one of the most important things in a relationship,_ his dads had told him. It was hard to be honest when you didn’t know what the fuck you were feeling yourself, but right now he had enough clarity to piece things together. “It’s really fucking embarrasing I didn’t already know you like this shit, but there wasn’t anything else to do about it at this point. Had to try something.”

More silence. It wasn’t awkward this time, just contemplative.

“Why?”

A one-word question that Damien had a surprisingly lengthy, well-thought-out answer for. A few hours ago, if he’d heard it, he would have sworn someone wrote a script for him. But the words decided not to fight him for once.

“It always started with some kind of infatuation, you know?” Damien said. “I’d see someone and I’d be like, ‘damn, they’re hot’ or ‘damn, they’re a badass.’ Half the time I’d be drunk when it first happened, too. And I’d have a crush for a while, and usually I’d convince ‘em to have some fun with me and it’d be nice for a while. But when we actually tried the relationship stuff it just… wouldn’t work. And I’m not stupid, I know that’s how relationships go sometimes. So it’d suck for a while, and then I’d get over it, and then I’d start crushing on someone else, and that wouldn’t work, and blah blah blah.

“You were different, though,” he said. “I never crushed on you. You were just some quiet-ass loser that managed to get on my nerves. And then prom happened, and… well. More proms happened. And it got to the point where I just—I couldn’t remember what it was like when you weren’t there? It was like you’d always been there somehow, and I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like if you _weren’t_ there. So I guess I took it for granted, ‘cause I didn’t think enough about it. I always thought—when I figured out I _really_ loved someone and my heart wasn’t just being a drunken idiot like it always is—I’d crush on someone and we’d try it out and it would just _work._ But you, you just… you snuck in. And I wasn’t expecting it to happen like that so I guess I just never thought what I was feeling was _that,_ you know?”

Brian was staring at him now, eyes wide, but Damien didn’t turn his gaze from the sky. “And then last year happened,” he said, nodding to himself. “And somehow I was _still_ too fucking dense to figure it out. There wasn’t even a moment where I realized it, it was just ‘Yeah, I’m gonna marry this dude’ and that’s just how it _was._ And I—” He stopped, shaking his head in disbelief, as if it was something too ridiculous to believe, “I never said anything? I never said a goddamn thing, I never _did_ a goddamn thing. Somehow I just believed it’d magically be like that forever and I wouldn’t have to do a thing. Fuck, you must’ve felt like shit. Like—like you were some kind of fucking _toy_ to me and I didn’t give a single fuck about you. _Fuck_ me. I am so, _so_ sorry.”

Damien wasn’t even mad he was crying this time. Fuck him and his stupid macho act. Fuck him for letting it get between him and Brian.

“So yeah, I had to do this,” he said. “‘Cause it was the only fucking thing I could do and you had to at least _know._ And if you gotta say no, I get it. I’d tell me to go fuck myself, too. And I’ll get over it eventually, but _god_ will it _suck_ because I’ve never been so goddamn sure about anything in my whole fucking life. I will try so _fucking_ hard if you let me. I’m gonna—”

It took Damien a few milliseconds at most to realize that the new sensation he was feeling was Brian’s mouth on his. It took him even less than that to turn his body towards him, to wrap his arm around Brian’s side, to curl his tail around his thigh, to kiss him back twice as hard with _a lot of fucking tongue._

Fuck, Brian still felt the same way. Damien hadn’t irreparably fucked everything up. He could feel his own heart thrumming wildy, like it had just been still for an hour waiting for Brian to answer and could finally pump some kind of life back into him.

“I love you,” Damien said, pulling away just long enough to say those words so that Brian knew in no uncertain terms that when Damien went back in to kiss him again, when he rolled on top of him and straddled his waist and pinned him down by the shoulders that was Damien showing him just how much he fucking meant it. And then, a thousand years too soon, Brian pushed him away, gasping for air.

Damien laid back next to him, waiting for his brain to catch up and process it all. Brian still had his eyes closed, laying on his back. Quietly—quietly enough that Damien wasn’t sure he’d meant to say it out loud—Brian muttered, “guess I didn’t last long, huh?”

Damien thought for a moment, trying to decipher what that could have meant. “Was… was the whole no prom thing a bet you guys made or something?”

Brian chuckled a little before opening his eyes. “Nah. There wasn’t a bet. We all talked about it a lot, decided that was what was best for us. But.” He shrugged again, turning his head toward Damien with a smile. “Thanks for today. It really meant a lot to me.”

Damien smiled back at him. “Well I ain’t anywhere near done yet.” He leaned in again, but Brian stopped him with a hand.

“I’m already a few minutes late and if I flunk this test I’m not graduating,” Brian said, almost apologetic.

“Aw shit. I’m sorry. You should go man, don’t let me keep you.”

Brian gave the demon’s shoulder a squeeze and gave him one last, quick kiss. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

Damien didn’t move from the grass as Brian got up and left. Normally something of this magnitude would have him on a celebratory arson run, but right now? He was exhausted. He was gonna take a fucking nap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betcha didn't think something like that was gonna happen in chapter 5 now didja
> 
> In all seriousness, though, it is for a reason, I promise. There's certain things I want to explore with Brian and Damien that rely on them being _in_ a relationship, so I'm writing under the assumption that a lot of relationship development happened before the fic/during the Monster Prom game. Soooo yeah this is how Damien feels and you all have to deal with it now sorry not sorry XD
> 
> Anyway, I apologize for the long gap between updates here :/ 2020 has been _wild_ to say the least. Hopefully my silly little fic can help brighten your day a little. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay kind, and thank you all for being brave. Know you're in my thoughts during these difficult times, especially my siblings here in the States.
> 
> Oh, and of course, Happy Pride!
> 
> \--PhantomDreamshade <3


	6. Boiling Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott goes to Amira for advice; Damien and Zoe have a talk about Zoe's erotic fanart; Zoe takes a shot at a Weekend Event; Miranda courts Oz; Something goes horribly wrong.

_Week 1, Saturday —Weekend_

**~A~**

Amira really needed a “me” day.

This week had been too much. As if all the end-of-senior-year crap weren’t enough on its own, Vera had apparently made it her mission to make Amira feel as angry, frustrated, and hurt as possible, and Polly’s sudden fixation on her was… confusing in the most unpleasant of ways. She’d honestly believed that their classmates would just ignore them like they had the rest of the year; and their sudden,  _ sharp _ change in demeanor made her feel—she didn’t really know how it made her feel, but it was probably somewhere between annoyed, insulted, and flat-out pissed off. It was difficult for her to imagine a motive they could have other than them feeling  _ entitled _ to the attention of her and her friends, which was bullshit. The four of them had thrown everything they had at those eight self-absorbed pricks. They already missed their chance.

And there was the added layer of feeling like she was the only one of her friends that could see it. Brian was still hopelessly in love with Damien and couldn’t hide it to save his life, Vicky was clearly still pining for Scott even though she’d definitely outgrown him like Amira had outgrown Polly, and Oz… Oz was wrapped up in their head as always, but Amira could sense their doubts about her plan. Because the no-prom plan really had been  _ hers, _ considering how reluctant everyone else was to go along with it at first. 

Maybe it was arrogant of her to believe that she knew what was best for all her friends; but she couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. Brian deserved someone that was going to cherish him every single fucking day without fail. Vicky deserved someone that could support her and make her happy and keep her from destroying herself to make everyone else happy. Oz deserved someone that would make him feel safe and appreciate his gentle, artistic soul. All eight of the popular kids had failed them at every possible opportunity; her friends deserved better.

And Amira? She deserved someone she could trust with absolutely anything, and she  _ definitely _ hadn’t found her yet.

She kept circling around this train of thought, which was neither useful nor relaxing. Her friends were adults capable of making their own decisions; if they decided to give those idiots their thousandth chance and it miraculously worked out, then she’d support them wholeheartedly. And if any of them hurt her friends? There’d be nothing left but ashes. For now, though, Amira was going to stay in her bathrobe the entire day, maybe paint her toenails while binging something on Netflix, and eat three whole tubs of ice cream because no one was here to fucking stop her.

No one, except for whatever unfortunate soul just rang her doorbell.

Vicky, Oz, and Brian always texted her before coming over, meaning it was probably Polly, or maybe even Vera. Or some solicitor who picked a really,  _ really _ bad door to knock on. Regardless, Amira was not in the mood for visitors today and grabbed her bottle of pepper spray. She opened the door, pointed the spray outside, and—

“Hi, Amira!”

“...Scott?” Amira blinked a few times before hiding the pepper spray behind her back. “Um. What a pleasant surprise. How did you find my house?”

“Oh, easy! I just followed your scent here. You smell like incense and campfires. Can I come in?”

“I—sure,” Amira said, stepping aside to let him in. Scott plopped down on the couch and Amira sat on the opposite end. “Do you need something?”

“...Oh, yeah! So you’re really good friends with Vicky, right?”

Amira sighed internally. “Yes, I am.”

“So, um… I really like Vicky. A lot. She’s super nice, and really smart—she helps me with my homework all the time—and she’s got the  _ best _ volleyball serve I’ve ever seen, and she always smells like a forest right after a thunderstorm, and she gives the best hugs, and she has the awesomest singing voice, and, and… well there’s a lot of things, but it’ll take too long to say them all.”

“She is… a pretty amazing person, yes.”

“I know! But some of my other friends were saying that maybe we haven’t been appreciating her enough, so I’ve been trying to show her how awesome I think she is? I tried to play a bunch of different sports with her—I even brought all my favorite balls—and I tried to cheerlead her while she was studying, and I tried to eat lunch with her a bunch of times this week, but… she’s always busy. So, I was wondering if you knew when she might not be busy, or if there’s something I can do to help her be not so busy? Because I really really really really really wanna show her that I appreciate her. I mean… I don’t remember being mean or anything, so I definitely don’t think she’s avoiding me or something, but I just want to make sure she knows how much I like her and it’s really hard to do that if she doesn’t ever have time to talk to me.”

Amira sat there, looking into Scott’s big, earnest puppy-dog eyes. Just five seconds ago she had been so stressed and angry and determined. Now, though, her resolve wavered. Scott was one of the only people in the entire school that could be described as “good” by any meaning of the word. She knew he’d never intentionally meant to hurt or ignore Vicky; and she had no doubt he meant what he was saying right now. But Vicky was on her way up in the world; she was lined up for a prestigious monster law school, she had perfect grades and an insatiable drive for success. Where was Scott going? Wouldn’t Vicky just be dragging him along with her?

The situation reminded Amira that Vicky had never let her own personal grievances make her an intercessor in Amira’s romantic business; Amira  _ was _ being a white knight in that way, when none of her friends needed that. Vicky could make her own decisions. She didn’t need Amira to be an anti-matchmaker for her.

“Well, you’ve tried some things that interest you the most,” Amira said, glancing away from Scott’s expectant face. “Why don’t you try to join her in some of her favorite things?”

“Oh, okay! So… you mean volleyball?”

Amira sighed again, out loud this time. “Vicky likes volleyball, yes, but she has other things she likes besides sports and food and cheerleading.”

“Wait… really?” Scott’s eyebrows scrunched together in confusion, his eyes staring blankly ahead as he tried to process the shocking revelation that people could have favorite things other than sports, cheerleading, and food.

“Yes, really,” Amira said. “She loves sudoku puzzles, and reading steamy romance novels. She’s really good at karaoke, and she likes fixing up old cars. There’s a lot of things she likes. Maybe, if you get to spend some time with her, you should ask her about them. People like it when you show interest in things they like, you know.”

Scott’s eyes immediately lit up. “Okay! I can do that! Thank you so much, Amira!”

Amira squeaked a little as Scott leaned forward and wrapped her in a tight bear hug. She gave him an awkward back-pat as he pulled away and hopped off the couch.

“I’ll see you at school!” he said, rushing out the door. “I have to go get some stuff!”

Amira shook her head, closing the door behind him and going towards the freezer for her ice cream. She nearly incinerated the entire room at the sound of a second doorbell ring; this time it was a vacuum-cleaner salesman, whom she  _ did _ pepper spray in the face.

**~B~**

This week had already been weird as fuck, but Damien couldn’t remember a day he’d felt this awkward, horny, or completely  _ frustrated. _

He and Brian had been invited to some sort of party happening in some park by Zoe, which at first Damien was psyched for—it was a perfect opportunity to spend some quality time with his new boyfriend. Miranda and Oz had also been invited, so Damien had gone to pick Miri up. She was babbling about Oz the whole time for some reason, but he was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to pay much attention. 

So he was all excited when he saw Oz and Brian and Zoe chatting on a park bench as he pulled up. But then, he remembered that Brian had  _ still _ never actually told him he wanted to be boyfriends, explicitly, with words. Sure there was the whole kiss thing, but for all Damien knew that meant Brian was just willing to go on a few more dates with him or something; and Damien didn’t want to assume anything and make even more of an ass of himself than he already had this year. Besides, they hadn’t even talked about if they wanted people to know they were a thing or not.

So, while everyone else made small talk as other people arrived at the park and started setting up snack tables and a DJ booth, Damien and Brian kept stealing (poorly-hidden) glances at each other and never actually said a word to each other directly. Nope, they just sat there like idiots pretending nothing was different between them because of stupid fucking social situations. Damien was about five seconds away from dragging Brian behind a tree and tearing his fucking clothes off.

Damien used his last ounce of common sense for the day to realize that would probably be a bad idea and decided to look for something to distract himself from how sexually frustrated he was at the moment. Brian, Oz, and Miranda had gotten up to grab everyone drinks and snacks; Zoe was doodling in some sort of notebook, so he leaned over to see what she was drawing.

Somehow that turned out to be the worst possible thing he could have done, because both pages he could see were covered in hyper-realistic, fully-colored drawings of him and Brian. On the left page, she’d drawn them kissing under the mistletoe (which was, admittedly, a pretty cute drawing), and Brian princess-carrying a shirtless Damien with a bunch of arrows and knives stuck in his torso. On the right were several more drawings of them wearing significantly less clothing: one where Brian had Damien pinned down by his shoulders on a bed, one where Brian had Damien on a fucking  _ leash _ , and one with Damien with his legs wrapped around Brian’s waist behind a tree and a tiny Zoe, Oz, and Miranda in the background sitting on a bench.

“...Did you just pull that out of my fucking head?” Damien said, jabbing his finger into the last risque drawing mentioned.

“Hm? Oh yeah, sorry, the mind-reading thing is kind of involuntary for me,” Zoe said. “And I mean, I took some artistic liberties, of course. Plus I can like, literally smell sexual tension, so...” She pointed to Brian and Damien alternately with her pencil and waggled her eyebrows.

“Okay, seriously, that’s a little fucked up. And invasive. And just flat-out creepy.”

“What? I just like the ship dynamic between you two! You’ve got Brian, who has all the chill, and you, who has no chill—opposites attract and all that. I just like drawing and/or writing my favorite characters in contrived romantic and/or sexual situations sometimes, don’t judge me.”

“Do I  _ look _ like a  _ character _ to you?” Damien said, a deadpan look of annoyance on his face. Zoe opened her mouth to say something, but thought for a moment and decided to just shrug nonchalantly instead. Damien growled a little. “And another thing—why do you always draw me like, a foot shorter than him? We’re the same height. Fuck that, I’m like a foot taller than  _ him _ if you count my horn.”

Zoe shrugged again. “Like I said, artistic liberties. It’s cute when the bottom’s way shorter than the top.”

“Excuse me?”

“...What? It’s an opinion.”

“That’s—ughhhhhh, jesus  _ fuck, _ Zoe.” Damien dug the claws of one hand into his scalp. “First of all, I’m not a bottom, I’m bottom  _ verse _ . Second of all, height has nothing to do with who likes what sex position, and  _ neither _ of those things have anything to do with who bosses who around in bed, if anyone’s doing the bossing at all. Third of all, fuck you.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry, okay?” Zoe said a little taken aback. “I… I didn’t mean to offend you or anything.”

“Yeah, well you keep doing it,” Damien said. “Just—you’re allowed to have headcanons about fictional characters or whatever but when you project that onto my life it gets really invasive and exploitative and honestly it makes me really fucking uncomfortable. And when all these dumb ideas about how a relationship between two dudes work are all you can find it can make people  _ actually _ think that way after a while. I mean—you date girls sometimes, don’t you? Does it work that way when  _ you’re _ in a relationship?”

“You… you’re right. I’m really sorry, Damien. The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable or something.” Zoe closed her notebook. “I’ll try to be more conscious of that sort of thing, I promise.”

“Thank you,” Damien said, leaning back against the bench and crossing his arms behind his head. Well, that rant had served well as a momentary distraction, until Damien realized said rant was about Zoe’s erotic fanart of him and Brian. So now, despite his discomfort with her creepy real-person fiction, he was even more horny than he was before.

Fuck this stupid song-and-dance. Damien marched over to Brian as he was returning with a pair of punch-cups and dragged him out of the park and into an alleyway (because fuck the behind-the-tree thing).

“Um. Okay. What are you—”

Damien cut Brian off by slamming the zombie’s hips against the wall with his hands and kissing him, hard. Brian kissed him back, still holding the two cups of punch out to the side. Damien pulled away a few seconds later.

“Sorry. I was just… getting really frustrated with this whole situation and I really needed that.”

Brian chuckled a little. “I’m not complaining.”

“So…” Damien glanced away, “about… you know. Yesterday. Are we boyfriends? O-Or dating, or…?”

Brian blinked a little. “...Shit. I guess I didn’t actually answer did I? And here I thought I was being all suave.” He laughed again. “Yeah, we’re boyfriends. If that’s still what you want.”

Damien sighed, tension leaving his muscles once again. “Yeah. Yeah that’s what I want.” He looked back to Brian, hooking his thumbs in the zombie’s belt loops. “So I mean… are we trying to keep this on the down-low for now or do we wanna tell people?”

Brian shrugged. “I mean I don’t feel like we need to grab a megaphone and make a big announcement or something, but I don’t care if people know. We can just… you know. Do couple stuff and let everyone else catch on.”

“Yeah, cool. Awesome.” Damien kissed him again, softer this time, finally able to just relish the moment with him. “How about we just ditch and go back to your place or something? I kinda wanna have some… quality time.” Damien put on his best seductive grin and leaned into Brian a little more, and to his great satisfaction Damien could see his boyfriend’s cheeks turning pink.

“Yeah. Sounds good.” Brian downed his punch in one go and then handed the other cup to Damien, who did the same. “...Damn. That’s definitely spiked. That’s… really spiked. Like, I think someone dumped a whole bottle of vodka in there spiked.”

“No shit. I mean… your place isn’t too far from here, right? We could just walk.”

“Yeah. We can do that.”

“Sweet.”

Damien grabbed Brian’s hand and wrapped his tail around the zombie’s waist before taking the scenic route back to Brian’s house.

**~C~**

Alright, so maybe Damien had a point about real-person fiction; the last thing she wanted to do was make a friend uncomfortable, even if said friend was  _ technically _ still a fictional character and thus the real-person fiction thing didn’t actually apply. And personal growth was a good thing too—there was always room for a more nuanced portrayal of different types of people. Which is why her next fic was going to revolve around a much more complex and interesting sexual dynamic between Dante LaVeer and his boyfriend Ryan Youn.

That was a task for later, though, because this eldritch cutie-pie had some romancing to do—and conveniently she and Oz were  _ almost _ alone. To Zoe’s competitive delight, Miranda also seemed to be eying the fearling; unfortunately for Miranda, this was Zoe’s weekend event. Maybe she should start snuggling up to some of her friends in case Oz came to one of them in a later weekend event—maybe Damien. She’d happily return the favor for him if Brian came knocking on her door.

Once again, though, a task for later. Zoe saw her opportunity to impress Oz and get some stats arrive in the form of a wealthy businessman dropping by a park rave thrown by twenty-something-year-old high-schoolers as wealthy businessmen are wont to do. She had overheard Oz thinking that they wanted to buy some of the merchandise from the band that was going to be playing but that said merchandise was exorbitantly expensive as most monster things are. What better way to get money than tricking someone with too much money into giving it to you? Of course, she’d need the right partner in crime—she called up Liam, who arrived moments later.

“So where’s this band you’ve never heard of?” He asked, looking around.

“Shh, that isn’t important, Liam! See that guy over there?” Zoe pointed.

“...The man in the business suit that’s clearly loaded?”

“Yeah, him. We’re gonna scam him out of some money so we can get Oz one of those band t-shirts.”

“...Why?”

“Don’t ask questions, Liam, we don’t have much time. Just follow my lead.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

Liam sighed loudly as Zoe dragged him along, though he didn’t protest further. She dragged him right into the businessman’s path as he made his way towards the punch bowl.

“Why hello therrre, sirrrr~” Zoe said, aggressively trilling her r’s as she was taught in  _ How to Sexy 7: Latin. _ “Might I, perhaps, have but a moment of yourrr time?”

“Oh, certainly,” he said. Zoe smirked.

“Thank you so much! You see, I’m a young, attrrrractive entrrreprrreneurrr looking for an investorrr to help me start up my business,” she said. Oz walked up behind the group, curious as to what was going on, and Zoe smirked even wider. Then she nudged Liam in the ribs to get him to contribute, as she hadn’t actually thought of what said business might actually be.

“Ahem, yes,” Liam said, shooting her a dirty look. “My uh… Canadian friend here has invented an incredible way to—”

“Canadian, you say?” The businessman said.

“...Yes…?” Zoe said.

“My ex-wife was Canadian,” he said, gazing off into middle distance.

Zoe looked at Liam, projecting her thoughts to him telepathically. “Canadian? Really?”

“What? I don’t know what accent you’re trying to pull off, all you’re doing is aggressively trilling your r’s!”

“It’s a Latin accent! A sexy fake Latin accent!”

“Latin? That’s ridiculously broad. What are you trying to do specifically? Italian? French? Mexican Spanish? Argentinian Spanish?”

“I don’t know, but it sure as hell wasn’t  _ Canadian! _ Just—ugh, nevermind.” She turned back to the businessman to find him still staring into nowhere. “Um… sirrr?”

“Hm? Oh, yes, sorry. I was just thinking about my ex-wife. Oh, Monica… why did you leave me?”

“Um… yeah, that’s unforrrtunate. Anyway, maybe we can get back to—”

“She was really something, that Monica. A real firebrand. I mean sure, she cheated on me at least a dozen times during the year we were married, but still.”

“—oh. Yeah that’s, uh. Yeah that’s not good.”

“I don’t know, maybe it was my fault—maybe I just didn’t appreciate her enough. What did I do wrong, Monica?! Oh, Monica…”

“Okay, there’s clearly a lot to unpack here and I barely know you, so maybe you should try to find a professional to help you out. If we could just get back to the investment thing—”

“You’re right! Surely a marriage counselor would be able to fix our relationship, even if we’ve been divorced for seventeen years. Thank you for the insight, my Canadian friend. Hold on, Monica, I’m coming!”

“That really isn’t what I—and he’s gone. Thanks a lot, Liam,” Zoe said, glaring at him. Liam just threw his hands up in the air, glanced at Oz, and then awkwardly walked over to the merchandise stand to figure out what band was playing. Oz gave Zoe some indecipherable look and walked off. Zoe chased him.

“Oz, hold on! I can buy you one of the band shirts with my own money. You know I have plenty!”

“No thanks, Zoe,” they said, voice even softer than usual. They started walking even faster, leaving Zoe alone on the edge of the park. They looked… really, really upset actually, and Zoe felt awful especially considering it seemed they were upset over something besides not getting a t-shirt that Zoe couldn’t decipher. Well, that couldn’t have gone worse.

Oh, right. Zoe also lost -2 CHARM and -1 SMARTS. So there was that.

**~D~**

_ In. Out. In. Out. _

Oz was not going to freak out over something as stupid as Zoe trying to buy him a shirt. Nevermind that it wasn’t the shirt per se, but the accent she was using on that wealthy businessman. Goddamn it, now he was thinking about it again.

How many times had Oz and their friends listened to that stupid tape, hoping it’d catch the attention of their classmates? It hadn’t done anything long-term, clearly. Yet here Zoe was, using that accent and calling in a friend to help with her weekend shenanigans: a pattern Oz was all too familiar with.

How had it all become so formulaic? It was never meant to be that way; not to Oz and their friends, anyway. They knew from their friends’ fears of heartbreak and rejection alone how strongly they felt about their respective crushes; and Oz had certainly had them. Liam. Miranda. Calculester, too, when he came to town. And Zoe—could they even call it a crush? Their feelings were always a whirlwind around her, impossible to figure out. But her, stealing that unintentional formula that Oz and their friends had fallen into, it felt…

Like it was all a game. And sure, in a fourth-wall-breaking sense it  _ was _ a game—Oz was a timeless interdimensional being as well, he knew how other realities interacted with his own—but it wasn’t a game to  _ him, _ or his friends, and it never had been. But apparently it was to Zoe, which was—too much. Existential horror was Oz’s brand and yet he’d never felt it more strongly than this moment. Nevermind the fact that it meant Zoe did not, in fact, care about him beyond him being a source of amusement; that gave him far more feelings than he was capable of dealing with at the moment. No, it meant that this  _ reality _ was just a game to her, that she didn’t actually care about anything here in a real sense, and that whenever she got bored it was going to happen all over again oh gods ohgods _ ohgods— _

Oz collided with the pavement of the back alley, losing their footing in the puddle of misty sludge underneath themself. They were shaking enough that their corporeal form had begun to disintegrate and drip down into a puddle of shadows. At this rate, they were going to dissolve back into the aether. They needed something to occupy their thoughts other than Zoe. They needed their friends, needed Brian. They tried to reach into their pocket for their phone, but they couldn’t keep their hand solid enough to actually grab it.

As fate would have it, a separate distraction arrived for him in the form of a beefy fish-man offering Oz a hand. He stared blankly for a second, mind switching from processing his snowballing existential crisis to processing reality, before recuperating some of his solidity and taking the hand. In front of him was Miranda, on a throne carried by several serfs, sitting just above Oz’s eye level.

Miranda. Miranda was a perfect distraction, Oz decided, giving her his full and utter attention.

“Are you okay, Oz? That was quite a spill!” Miranda said, hand over her chest daintily.

“I-I’m fine,” they said. “Thanks for the, um. The hand up.”

“Of course! A princess can help out her knight in shiny armor once in a while too, you know.”

“R… Right,” Oz said. Something felt off about that sentence, but Oz was in no mood to figure out exactly what.

“Well—now that I have you alone in this tiny, somewhat dark alley in the middle of nowhere, I have a very exciting announcement to make,” Miranda said. Oz looked around and had to fight off a wave of claustrophobia at the realization that he was surrounded by mer-goons in an uncomfortably close circle. “I, Miranda Vanderbilt, am to be wed within the next few weeks!”

“Wh—wait. R-Really? That’s… w-wow, Miranda, that’s amazing! Who’s the lucky person?”

“Why, you of course! Silly Oz. You’re the only suitable candidate that remains, so of course it has to be you!”

Oz’s brain (or whatever passed for their brain) was completely, utterly fried at this point; which was why, against all common sense, the next word out of their mouth was “No.”

“No?” Miranda said, tilting her head.

“N-no, I… I don’t feel that way about you,” they said. Then the air around them grew cold and still as they realized they had just said  _ no _ to Miranda Vanderbilt. You didn’t say no to Miranda. That just wasn’t something that people  _ did. _

“I’m sorry,  _ what?” _ Miranda said, leaning forward in her throne. Oz immediately started backing away, only to bump into more surly merfolk. “I chose  _ you _ as my betrothed, and you say  _ no? _ Who do you think you are?”

“I—that’s n-n-not—d-d-don’t—”

“Do you know who I am? I’m Miranda Vanderbilt! I own the entire ocean, as well as numerous land territories recently conquered by my father! I’m the most beautiful, sweetest, most perfectly amazing person alive on the planet, and you say  _ no?!” _ She was screaming at this point, and all Oz could do was quiver in place. “Guards! Seize this horrible, wretched, mean, evil thing and take him to the palace to be executed! I want him out of my sight,  _ now!” _

A pair of guards grabbed Oz’s shoulders and arms. That was it. That was the breaking point.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!”

A burst of black energy filled the alley; conveniently, Miranda’s enchanted throne protected her from it. Her guards, however, all started screaming bloody murder, running away in terror as their worst nightmares coalesced in their minds and severed them from reality. Miranda and her throne went flying in the air; it landed with the princess trapped beneath the comically large, cushy, and heavy piece of furniture.

“Hello? Hello! Someone get this off of me, this INSTANT!”

But there was no answer but the gradually fading screams of her serfs. She called out again for a few more minutes, livid, but no one came. She made a singular effort to push the throne off of her, and could barely get the cushions to bend inward.

Miranda reached out through the small hole that connected her to breathable air, waving her hand. “Hello?! Help me, someone! Oz! Oz, save me! I’ll forgive you if you get this throne off of me!”

No answer. She peered out through the gap to see a pile of clothes sitting in a puddle of black ooze in the process of evaporating into thick, dark vapor. 

“...Oz? Oz?! Oh my sweet ocean gods, I… HELP! SOMEONE GET ME OUT OF HERE!” Miranda started pounding pathetically on the cushions with her fists, scream-crying to the air for someone to rescue her. But there was no one around to hear her for now.

**~E~**

Vicky was so tired. She barely made it in the front door before slumping down to the ground. She really needed to be more careful about her charge level.

She just laid on the floor next to the outlet, electricity running into the bolts on her neck from the simple wires she’d jammed into the sockets. Now that she had space to think, she had the horrible feeling that she’d forgotten to do something important. That sort of fear often nagged at the back of her mind, sure, but something was different about it this time. It was stronger, more primal.

_ Oz. _ She’d forgotten to warn them about Miranda, goddamn it. She whipped out her phone with lightning speed and called their speed dial. The phone rang; it continued ringing. Soon enough it went to voicemail, which was very strange for Oz. She called again; no answer still. A pit formed in her stomach, icy cold.

Vicky called Brian this time—no answer there, either. She realized she hadn’t checked her texts yet and moved over to the messaging app; nothing from Oz, but something from Brian.

_ guess whos getting laiiiid? _

She smiled for a second, happy that things had turned out so well out of nowhere for the stupid dork, but then growled at her phone when she realized Brian definitely wasn’t going to pick up for a while. That left Amira.

“Hello?”

“Amira, thank god,” Vicky sighed. “Do you know where Oz is?”

“...He went out with Brian and a few other people, I thought?”

“He did, but he won’t answer his phone and I forgot to warn him that Miranda apparently decided he’s her new spouse.”

“She—it’s always fucking something. Hold on, let me try.” Amira put her on hold, trying to call Oz to no avail.

“Amira,” Vicky said, voice deathly soft. “I have a horrible feeling.”

“I—I know. Dammit. DAMMIT!” There was a roar of flame and static, and Vicky moved the phone away from her ear, wincing. “What the fuck happened?!”

“I-I don’t know,” Vicky said, her fingers tangling themselves in her hair. “You don’t think—I don’t know. But Amira I think he—”

“Where’s Brian? He’s… you know he’s better at handling this than either of us are.”

“He’s with Damien right now, Amira.”

“Well Damien can fuck off, Oz needs Brian right now. Did you call him already?”

“You don’t—he’s  _ with _ with Damien, Amira. He isn’t gonna answer for a while.”

“Fuck that damn demon, UGHHH—”

“Calm down! This isn’t either of their faults. Besides, you know there’s not really anything that can be done for a few hours anyway. We’ll just… we’ll let him know later.”

“...I know, I know. I just—fuck this whole month. Fuck our goddamn classmates. I swear I’m gonna make a luau out of at least one of them before this whole thing blows over.”

“Let’s just… wait until we can talk to Oz, okay?”

“...Fine, you’re right. I just—nevermind. I can’t think clearly, I need to cool down. Just keep me updated, will you?”

“Of course.”

Amira hung up, and Vicky disconnected herself from the outlet. This was bad. This was so very, very bad. She forced herself to keep her breaths slow and calm, and went into the kitchen for a cup of chamomile. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody have a long (by my standards) chapter
> 
> You may have noticed some minor format changes--this was done so that I can put trigger warnings for potentially sensitive material in future chapters for a specific section. That way, if you need to avoid something, you can skip section X instead of the whole chapter. That's the idea, anyway. Nothing in particular for this chapter, though I'll mention some risque-ness in section B. There won't be any _explicit_ sexual content in this fic (sorry, lol) but it'll get pretty close at times, so I'll warn for that in the endnotes for anyone that's easily squicked out. Though if you weren't expecting Monster Prom's unapologetic sense of humor in regards to these things, I don't know how to help you lmao
> 
> Regardless--stay safe and healthy everyone!
> 
> \--<3 PhantomDreamshade


	7. Floodgates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian comforts Oz after his meltdown; Vera and Polly pay Vicky a visit; Amira finds Miranda trapped beneath her throne; Scott comes to Vicky's house to ask her something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any applicable warnings will be in the endnotes for this and future chapters <3

_Week 1, Sunday—Weekend_

**~A~**

Brian woke up to the sensation of something poking him in the ribs. And then the neck. Then his face. Brian smacked at it—it was a finger, attached to a hand—and rolled over on his side, pulling the blankets tighter around himself.

“Hey asshole, wake up.”

“Noooo…”

“Yes. C’mon, Brian, get your ass up already.” Damien started shaking him. “You’re cute when you’re sleeping and all but there’s only so long I can watch without getting bored.”

Brian’s response was to roll over again, wrapping his arms around Damien’s back and burying his face in his chest. It was way too warm and comfy here to get up for at least a few more hours. Brian was never warm, being dead and all, so he took what he could get. He heard Damien sigh, arms wrapping around him in turn.

“Hey,” Damien said, smacking Brian’s butt with his tail, “last night was fun, right?”

“Mm hm.”

“Well we can’t have any more fun if you stay asleep,” he said, curling his tail around Brian’s thigh. He started running his nails down Brian’s back gently, giving him goosebumps.

Brain finally opened his eyes, yawning and then looking up at his boyfriend reluctantly. “Morning.”

“Morning,” Damien grinned. He pulled Brian into a slow kiss, tangling their bodies back together, only for the moment to be interrupted by Damien’s stomach growling loudly. Brian started laughing and Damien looked away, embarrassed.

“Look, it’s not my fault I need to eat all the time,” Damien said. “All that fire has to come from somewhere.”

“I know,” Brian said, kissing him on the cheek. “How ‘bout you jump in the shower and I’ll start on breakfast. Then we can netflix and chill after or something.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Damien said, pulling away and sitting up to stretch. He watched as Brian pulled himself up as well, resting his head in his knees as he tried to wake up fully. Something bittersweet settled in his chest, just like it had when he’d been watching Brian sleep earlier. He scooted a little closer to the zombie, wrapping his arms around his chest from behind and resting his chin on his shoulder. “Hey, I just… I dunno. Never thanked you, I guess.”

“Mm?”

“For giving me a chance. I uh… you… I mean… ugh! I fucking hate words sometimes. I just… I want you to know I’m not gonna waste it. I swear.”

“You better not, asshole,” Brian chuckled.

“I know.” Damien leaned his head against Brian’s. “I’m sorry I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“If I wasn’t one we’d have been doing this kinda shit for, like, years now.”

“You don’t gotta keep apologizing, alright?” Brian said, twisting a little so he could look at him. “We’re here now, and I’m… I’m really happy right now, Damien. So you don’t gotta worry about me too much.”

Damien smiled a little at that, cuddling Brian a little tighter. “Well at least I can make up for lost time now, yeah?” His stomach growled again. “...Right after breakfast.”

Brian laughed again and elbowed Damien towards the bathroom. “Go on, get in there you dork.” Damien hopped off the bed and started the shower as Brian grabbed his phone. His face fell.

A dozen missed calls from Vicky and Amira, and some thirty-odd texts. He started reading through them immediately.

“Is this as hot as your shower goes?” Damien called.

“I don’t live in hell, Damien,” Brian said, absentminded. “...Fuck.”

“Something wrong?”

“I’m so sorry, I gotta go.” He started collecting his discarded clothes off of the floor and putting them on haphazardly. “Something happened to Oz, I gotta go make sure they’re okay.”

“Oh shit. Do you need me to come with you?”

“No, no, I’ll be fine by myself. I’m really sorry to run out like this. Can you let yourself out once you’re done?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, for sure.” Brian closed the door behind himself as he left.

***

_“There_ you are, you son of a bitch,” Amira said. “You took your sweet-ass time, didn’t you?”

“Amira,” Vicky said, giving Brian a sympathetic glance as he entered Oz’s house, “drop it. Oz didn’t show up until 15 minutes ago anyway, him being here any sooner wouldn’t have done anything.”

Amira sighed to herself, putting on her jacket as she headed towards the door. “You’re right, you’re right, I’m just so fucking frustrated. I’m gonna go out and try to figure out what happened to them.” The door slammed shut behind her.

“Don’t take it personally,” Vicky said, half to Brian and half to the ground. “She’s really upset about something Vera did—she won’t even tell me what it is, so it must be pretty bad—and now this happened and I think she’s just… boiling over.”

“I know,” Brian nodded. “How long has Oz been gone?”

“Longer than I’ve ever seen before,” Vicky said. “That’s why we figured it would be best if you go in and… you know. He’s most comfortable with you.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, um… I’m gonna head home. I’ll have my phone on, so just call me if you need anything.” Vicky gave him a half smile and headed towards the door.

“I really am sorry I didn’t pick up. You know I wouldn’t just… you know. Leave any of you hanging.”

“We know,” Vicky said. She turned around and gave Brian a tight hug. “And I’m really happy for you. I’m glad things are working out with you and Damien, really. And I know Amira is too, deep down. You deserve it.”

“Thanks,” Brian said. “I’ll talk to you later, V.”

Vicky gave him one last smile before leaving; Brian walked toward Oz’s basement door, where a small idol off to the side was pouring black smoke from its mouth, indicating the fearling was inside. He stepped through one door and closed it behind himself before opening a second, like an airlock for light.

The basement was pitch-black as always, so Brian felt his way down the stairs and then called out Oz’s name softly.

“B...B...Br…”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Brian said, following the source of the voice and sitting down in a corner of the small room. A few moments passed before a pair of frigid, semi-gaseous arms wrapped themselves around his neck. Brian hugged them back tightly, pulling Oz’s half-corporeal form into his lap. They sat like that in silence for an indeterminable amount of time. Brian held open his parka so Oz could nestle inside a little bit.

“Hey,” Brian said, breaking the silence after Oz’s breathing had calmed down a little and his form had become more solid. “You a little better now?”

He felt Oz nod against his shoulder. They finally released their death grip around Brian’s neck and readjusted themself so that they were laying back against the zombie’s chest. They pulled the parka a little tighter around themself.

“...You’re warm,” Oz remarked.

“Yeah, well… Damien tends to warm up the bed when he stays the night.”

Oz shrunk a little at that comment. “...You shouldn’t be here right now.”

“Why not?”

“Y-You should be with Damien,” Oz said. “Y-You’re boyfriends now, r-right? Y-Y-You shouldn’t have to do this sort of thing f-for me anymore.”

“Still not following you, Oz.”

“F-Friends don’t do this sort of thing,” Oz said, their voice dropping to a harsh whisper. They immediately winced at their own tone. “I-I know much you like him. I-I don’t w-wanna screw it up now that you f-finally… finally…”

“Okay, first thing: who says friends can’t do this? Second: you aren’t gonna get between me and him, alright? It’s not like I’m gonna hide that I care about you. And I know he’s a knucklehead, like, ninety percent of the time, but he’s pretty cool about a lot of things. I don’t think he’d find you threatening in that way, Oz.”

“We don’t do this with Amira or Vicky, Brian. We know more about each other than anyone else does. I just…” Oz sighed loudly. “I’m so confused all the time now. Maybe… m-maybe I was in love with you this whole time and I was too dumb to figure it out.”

Brian let out a single, voiceless laugh. “...Alright. Let’s entertain that thought for a minute. Close your eyes, imagine something for me.” Oz did as he asked. “So imagine: you and me, a decade in the future maybe. We’re married, living together; we got three kids running around the house, being all adorable, and I’m programming game software or some shit in our bedroom while you illustrate comics or something. And I give you little kisses on the cheek all the time and sneak up behind to cuddle you while you’re washing dishes and stuff.”

Oz giggled a little and Brian smiled. “Too ridiculous to imagine, huh?”

“Yeah, I… I guess you’re right. I can’t… can’t imagine that.”

“Now swap me out for Zoe.”

“Wh—” Oz immediately froze.

“I think you have your answer.”

Oz didn’t say anything for a while. “...I-It doesn’t make any sense though.”

“Since when has anything about our lives made a lick of sense?” Brian said. “You say we don’t act like friends; sure, whatever. But I don’t think you’re in love with me either. So… maybe we’re just ‘us.’ I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

“I guess… I guess that makes sense.”

“So you don’t gotta worry about me and Damien, alright?” Brian adjusted his arms, hugging Oz’s torso. “Now, just on a wild assumption—Zoe did something, right? That’s why we’re down here right now.”

Oz fought down a wave of vertigo. “Y… Yeah.”

“You feel comfortable talking about it?”

“N-No.”

“You feel comfortable playing hot-and-cold?”

“I… I-I think so.”

“Stop me if you need to,” Brian said. “Zoe used her powers and it freaked you out.”

“Cold.”

“She… mentioned something about an alternate reality.”

“Warm…er?”

Brian reached up and scratched his chin, thinking. “She did something that made you feel like… she doesn’t think we’re real.”

“...Hot.”

Brian nodded to himself. “You know she’s a different person now, right?”

“Y… Yeah. D-Deep down, I guess. B-But… b-but she still…”

“Yeah, I know. She still scares you.”

“I-It doesn’t make sense. Why do I still…? When she’s a-around I just… I still… why do I s-still c-care about her like that?”

“Like I said before: since when has anything about us ever made sense? Love sure as hell doesn’t make sense, but it’s still there. Doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s good for you. But that’s a judgement you have to make for yourself.”

Oz nuzzled into the space between Brian’s neck and shoulder. “...Yeah. Y-You’re right.” The corners of his eyes crinkled into a smile Brian couldn’t see. “Thank you. You always… a-always know just what to say.”

“I’ve had practice,” Brian said, chuckling a little. “...You should talk to her about it sometime. If anyone could understand the position you’re coming from, it should be her.”

“M… M-Maybe,” Oz said. “I-I’m not ready yet.”

“I know. We can just hang out today. A nap sounds nice right about now anyway,” Brian said, yawning. “That asshole woke me up at noon today. _Noon_ , Oz. I’m surprised I even made it here without falling asleep.”

Oz giggled, getting comfortable. “Yeah. A nap sounds nice. ...Thank you, Brian.”

“Anytime you need me.”

**~B~**

Vicky barely made it through the front door before her hands started to shake again. Sparks of errant electricity popped out of the bolts on her neck.

She’d overworked herself. All of these honors and AP classes she’d taken senior year seemed to have their final exams and projects at the same time, she was drowning in homework and reading and studying, and now _this_ fiasco with Oz—her nerves were shot, almost literally. Vicky knew how dangerous that was for her. One more straw and she might…

No, no, she was getting ahead of herself. This week had just been bad; surely the next one would be better, and her friends would be okay, and she could catch up on all her work. Surely.

And, as if summoned, there was a knock at the door.

Vicky’s arm twitched violently and she quickly held it against her side with her other hand. This was worse than she thought. She needed to de-stress, _now,_ so whoever was at the door had better be Oz and Brian coming to tell her that they were okay. She plastered a smile over her teeth and opened the door.

“Hey, boo~”

Oh god. “Oh—Hi… Polly… what a… nice surprise…”

“Well from your tone it doesn’t _sound_ like a nice surprise.”

No. No, no, no. Not Vera too. Vicky could barely handle her on a good day, let alone right now.

“Well I’m really sorry guys, you caught me at a bad time,” Vicky said, involuntary chuckles slipping in between her words. “Can this wait?”

Vera gave her a confused look. “Look, I’m sorry this is inconvenient for you but I’ve had enough of you and your little band’s dodginess this week. I just need to ask you about something and then we’ll leave you to… whatever it is you’re doing right now.”

“Spit it out then.”

Vera stared at Vicky for a few seconds, a little surprised by her hostility. She could see literal sparks coming off of her. Not to mention that she was gripping the doorknob so hard that she’d crushed it like a soda can. Polly just kept looking between both Vicky and Vera, even more confused.

“I just… need you to get Amira to talk to me. Every attempt I’ve made at getting in touch with her has been futile.”

“Gee, it sounds like she’s avoiding you or something. I wonder why?” Vicky said, increasingly hysterical.

“I know why!” Vera snapped. What was it with these people and their sudden condescendingness? “Just… look. I _know_ I made a mistake, alright? I never should have let my gorgon gaze activate like that no matter _how_ angry I was—”

“Gorgon gaze?” Vicky’s shaking stopped all at once, and dark spots started hovering at the edges of her vision. “You tried to kill her? You _tried_ to _kill_ her?”

“No! Not… not on purpose. Look, if you just—”

Vicky slowly, methodically walked forward until she was inches from Vera’s face, eyes boring holes into her skull. Her voice turned deathly soft and even. 

“Do you know how easy it would be for me to pull out your spine right now?”

Vera blinked in disbelief.

Vicky took a step backward. Somehow, she was several feet closer to Vera and the gorgon was staring at her as if she’d said something shocking.

Oh god. Oh _god_ she was blacking out. She stumbled back inside.

“V… Vicky wait, wh—”

“Look, even if I wanted to help you I can’t so just—” She looked around the house desperately. She had to get them to leave, _now._ She tore a sheet off a nearby magazine and started scribbling a phone number with a sharpie. “Call that. If anyone can help you it’s her. Now get _out._ ”

She slammed the door in their faces and slid to the ground, hugging her knees to her chest as she started to hyperventilate. Control. She was in control. Control, control, _control._

**~C~**

Amira arrived at the park, which was—to no one’s surprise—coated in an array of streamers, plastic cups, and other party trash that no one had bothered to clean up. Stuffing all her anger in a box to deal with later, she waved her fingers in a few magical gestures to cast a tracking spell. A set of glowing, Oz-sized footprints appeared. The trail headed into the park, meandered around for a bit, and then veered off toward an alleyway. Amira followed.

The footprints continued for a long while—long enough that the spell nearly expired—but eventually came to a stop inside a pile of Oz’s clothes. Around them were scattered merfolk weapons, as well as a massive, overturned throne. To be honest Amira hadn’t expected Miranda to be the cause of Oz’s disappearance, but it was hard to mistake that gaudy fish-themed chair as anyone else’s. Curious, she rolled it over.

Miranda raised her head from a puddle of mermaid tears to look up at Amira, then wrapped her arms around Amira’s legs and sobbed something along the lines of “this has been the worst experience of my entire existence” into her shins. Considering the complete lack of adversity in Miranda’s life, Amira didn’t doubt that statement was true.

Miranda looked so pathetic, in fact, that Amira forgot how _livid_ she was for a few moments. She picked Miranda up princess-style with a heavy sigh, partly because Amira felt a little bad for her, mostly because her crying was getting tears all over her legs and Amira hated being wet.

“Are you going to tell me what happened or are you going to keep sobbing like a three-year-old that lost her blanket?” Amira said.

“It was _horrible,”_ Miranda said. “I was trapped under that throne for _ages_ and no one came! ...What month is it? What _year_ is it?! Was this an assassination attempt? Has the merkingdom fallen into ruin?”

“You haven’t even been here for twenty-four hours, Miranda. I’m sure your kingdom is still standing. I was asking what happened to _Oz.”_

“They’re gone,” Miranda said, her voice suddenly quiet. “And ever since they died I’ve had this awful feeling in my chest that won’t go away.”

“You mean guilt?” Amira asked, rolling her eyes as she carried Miranda back towards the park.

“Is that what this soul-crushing pain is called? Make it go away!”

“I can’t. That’s what happens when you try to murder your friends, Miranda.”

“Where is my difficult-emotions serf when I need him? How do you _live_ like this?”

“Well for starters I try not to hurt people I like so I don’t feel guilty in the first place.”

“But… but… they said they didn’t want to marry me,” Miranda sniffed. _“None_ of you will marry me! Why? Why won’t you marry me? I’m the most perfect princess there is!”

Amira set Miranda down on a park bench and then sat down beside her. “Look, Miranda. I understand that you’re used to getting everything you want without question. But people, love… those things can’t be _bought_ , or demanded. It’s a long, difficult process; and you can’t rush it or cut corners like you’re trying to do. Why did you even ask any of us to marry you?”

“Because you’re currently desirable and marrying you would give me social clout?”

Amira resisted the urge to tell her social clout was no reason to marry someone, realizing that argument would likely fall on deaf ears. She thought for a moment, looking for something else to say.

“Yes, well. That’s what we offer you. What do you offer us?”

“...Hm?”

“Love is a two-way street, Miranda. What do you bring to the table?”

“Well… I suppose I bring vast riches and immense political power,” Miranda said. “Also, I’m very cute.”

Amira chuckled a little, in spite of herself. “And there are many, _many_ people who would appreciate those qualities, I assure you. But that’s not what I want from a relationship. And it isn’t what Oz wants, or what Vicky wants, or even what Brian wants.”

“Well—what _do_ you want then?”

“I want… someone who is confident, and bold. Someone… sexy and funny and loyal to a fault. That’s what I want from the person I eventually marry, Miranda. And while you have many fine qualities, they’re different qualities than what I’m looking for. Love isn’t just… sifting through a list of people and making a selection. You have to find someone that has what you’re looking for, but you also have to be the person _they’re_ looking for; and then you have to do all you can to treat them with respect and dignity and care. Even that’s just the beginning.”

“I… I see,” Miranda said. She’d finally stopped crying, and she actually looked… contemplative. It was a strange look on her. “Thank you, Amira. I don’t think anyone’s ever given me advice like this. And thank you for saving me, of course. Are… are you sure you wouldn’t like to marry me?”

“I’m quite sure.”

Miranda nodded. “I’m… I’m very sorry about Oz. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I mean, I was going to have him executed later, but. Not like that.”

“...He can’t actually die, Miranda. He’ll be back.”

Miranda’s eyes lit up. “R-Really! Oh, my heart! Suddenly this ‘guilt’ feels much less severe! You truly are a wonderful friend, Amira. May I ask one more question?”

Amira sighed again. “One more.”

“How will I find this person who is both what I seek and is seeking me?”

“You just have to keep looking. Sometimes they’ll hide in unexpected places. If you want, I… suppose I could set a date up for you. See if that person could be the one.”

“That would be wonderful! Oh, thank you so much.” Miranda threw a big hug around Amira’s shoulders.

“You’re welcome,” Amira said. “There is one more thing I need to tell you, though.”

“Oh?”

Amira leaned in close to Miranda’s face. “Hurt any of my friends again, and you’ll feel something far worse than guilt.”

Miranda shrunk back a little. “I-I won’t do that again, I promise. Would… would you tell Oz sorry for me, when you see them again? I didn’t realize they weren’t the one I was looking for.”

“You can tell them yourself when they come back to school. Here’s your phone, by the way. I found it in the alleyway. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Amira snuck a final glance at Miranda as she walked away; against all odds it seemed like she’d gotten through to her, on some level at least. Her mood stabilized, she decided to head home and get some homework done. Oz could fill her in on the rest of the story when he was ready.

**~D~**

Vicky’s hands were still quaking, her cup of chamomile tea clattering against the saucer. She was the kind of optimist that could find the silver lining in almost anything, but today had just been _awful_ and she was tired of pretending it wasn’t. Sure, Brian’s apparent success with Damien was great for him and Vicky was nothing but happy for him, but everything in _her_ life was just shitty today. What she needed was a full system cleanse: to completely drain the electricity from her body and put her recharge on a timer so she’d be ready for school tomorrow morning. She just needed today to be _over._

Except she couldn’t bring herself to do that, because that scaly medusa bitch had tried to _kill_ Amira. Vicky knew this would happen, knew that snake couldn’t be trusted. She never should have let Amira near her. She should have just—

That was not a constructive train of thought. There was no telling what would happen if she blacked out for real, if she couldn’t get control of herself. She wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

Three loud knocks thudded on the door, and Vicky’s teacup shattered in her hand.

“No one’s home!” Vicky shouted on impulse, cursing to herself quietly as she looked at the shards of ceramic embedded in her hand.

“Vicky? Are you okay?”

No, not Scott. Anyone but him. Today had been way, way too much without throwing him into the mix. Apparently the “no one’s home” trick was too dumb even for Scott. Why couldn’t he be oblivious when she needed him to be?

“Vicky? I said ‘are you okay?’ I’m starting to worry a little.”

Vicky tried to force some sort of excuse out of her mouth, but her words dried up. Her brain was fried, her nerves were shot. She had nothing left to give today.

“Vicky, I’m coming in, okay? J-Just to make sure you’re alright.”

The door—already partly busted from Vicky’s earlier grip on the doorknob—easily gave way to Scott’s shoulder-check. He looked over at her, big concerned puppy eyes locking onto her hand.

“Vicky, what—what happened?”

Vicky’s wits finally returned to her. “O-Oh this old teacup just… you know, broke. In my hand. Like teacups do sometimes.”

“Oh, okay. You had me really worried! And… your hand looks hurt.”

“Oh it’s really nothing, I can just—”

“Stay right there, I have a first aid kit in my car!” Scott rushed out the door, returning a moment later with a red-and-white plastic box. He knelt down in front of Vicky and she reluctantly gave him her hand. He started picking out the pieces of the shattered cup with surprising delicateness.

“I… never knew you could do first-aid,” Vicky said, watching him work.

“Oh, yeah! You never know when a teammate might get hurt during a match. Always best to be prepared! Coach taught me that.” He finished up, wrapping the hand in gauze. “There, all better! You should buy stronger teacups. Your hand muscles must be getting too strong.”

“Yeah, I’m… sure that’s it.” They stared at each other for a few seconds, Vicky waiting for him to say something and Scott just sitting there.

“Oh! Right!” Scott said, eyes lighting up. “I brought you something!” He produced some sort of small notebook from his pocket and handed it to her. Vicky opened it up; it was a booklet of sudoku puzzles, with every other puzzle filled in with random numbers and letters and other symbols. Needless to say, they had not been solved correctly. “I see why you like these puzzles so much, they’re really fun. Sooooo I thought I’d do half and then you could do the other half! Teamwork!”

Vicky laughed a little. “That’s… that’s really, really sweet, Scott.”

Scott beamed, tail wagging back and forth on the floor. Vicky’s smile faded a little.

“Oh! Oh yeah, there was other stuff too!” He pulled out a small, slightly-beat-up paperback with a vampire and skeleton taking a shower together on the cover. “It’s a steamy romance novel! Because they’re taking a shower together, so there’s steam. Oh! And, and I found this old abandoned car in the dump that’s kinda close to my house! It doesn’t have any wheels so I couldn’t figure out how to get it here but I’m going to! And then we can fix it together! And, and, and… um… I know you and your friends said you didn’t want to go to prom this year? And that’s fine if you don’t want to, but… um… prom’s always been really really really really really fun when I go with you? So, if you wanna, I’d really really really really really really really really really really like to go to prom with you again this year because I think you’re amazing and beautiful and smart and funny and… and…”

Scott looked up from twiddling with his fingers in his lap to see Vicky covering her mouth with one hand, tears rolling down her face. His face immediately fell. “Did… did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Vicky said, sniffing and shaking her head, “no, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then… why are you crying?”

She took in a shaky breath, eyes turning away from Scott. “I… I have just had a really, really awful day today, Scott. I’ve had an awful week, honestly. And I’m really stressed out and angry and sad and…” Her lower lip quivered a bit, and her voice cracked. “And you deserve an honest answer to that question, Scott, but I can’t even think clearly right now.”

“That’s okay,” Scott said, voice dimming down from his normally exuberant timbre. “Everyone has bad days, I understand. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I think I just need some alone time to think about a few things.” She finally looked back at him.

Scott nodded, and smiled again. “Okay.” He got up from the ground and headed towards the door. Vicky grabbed his hand at the last moment.

“Thank you for all of this. It’s a really nice gesture, Scott,” Vicky said. He smiled a little wider. “How about you and me have lunch together tomorrow? So I can explain a few things.”

The werewolf’s eyes lit up. “Okay! I’d like that a lot.” His tail wagged a little as Vicky let go of his hand. “Um… would you like a hug before I leave?”

Vicky looked up at him from the couch. “A hug sounds very nice right now.”

Scott knelt down and wrapped her in a soft hug. Vicky leaned against his shoulder, her breathing finally beginning to stop quaking. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck. Despite everything, despite the sharp pain in her chest she’d started feeling whenever Scott was around this semester, Vicky felt relaxed for once. Her tremors had stopped completely by the time Scott said his goodbyes and walked out the door.

Deciding this was as good a way as any to relax, Vicky picked up the book of sudoku puzzles and grabbed a pen.

***

_End of Week 1_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> ~A~ There's some morning-after cuddle-stuff in the beginning of this section, but it's pretty benign in my opinion *shrug* better safe than sorry
> 
> Hey everyone! College is starting back up next week, so I don't know how often updates are gonna happen. I will keep trying my best, though, so all I ask for is your patience <3


	8. Continuum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A number of people come to Brian for romance advice, to Damien's annoyance; Vicky has her lunch-conversation with Scott; Zoe tries to get another event and Oz reaches their breaking point.

_Week 2, Monday —Morning_

**~A~**

“Ugh, where is that  _ damned _ zombie?” Vera said, prowling out of the school and heading towards the bathrooms.

“Vera c’monnnnn, talk to me,” Polly said. “You’ve been dragging me around all over the place since yesterday morning and you won’t even explain what happened with you and Amira!”

“I think Vicky gave you a clear enough answer to that question yesterday.”

“...Did she? I wasn’t paying that much attention, but she did seem like she was in, like, a  _ super _ bad mood. Must have had a bad trip or something.”

“Not everyone uses LSD as much as you do, Polly.”

“Okay, sure, whatever. What I don’t get is why you’re dragging me along for all this,” Polly said. “I mean like… Amira’s beef is with you, not me. And I’m not saying I don’t care about your happiness or well-being, because you know I do, but I just don’t see how I’m supposed to help with this situation.”

“Have you had any more success with her than I have?” Vera sighed.

“Wh—okay no, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

“We’re talking to her friends to figure out how we can get back on good terms with her. It isn’t that hard, Polly.”

Polly stared at her for a few seconds as they continued walking. “Girl, when did you get so doom-and-gloom, huh? Where’s all that trademarked Vera Oberlin sexy swagger?”

“Since everything went to shit, Polly,” Vera snapped. She rolled her eyes. “Since all this stupid guilt started ruining everything. Everything was  _ perfect _ until last year, and now she hates me for some reason, and I just— _ can’t. _ Alright? I hate this situation and these stupid feelings and I don’t know any other way to get them to go away, so I’m dealing with it. If you don’t want to be here, then fine. Go get wasted like always for all I care.”

“Hey,” Polly said, a little indignant. “You don’t have to be like that, sheesh. Of course I want to figure out what’s going on with Amira. But why are we looking for Brian? I thought you hated him.”

“I  _ do _ hate him. Smug, lazy-ass bastard. But I don’t trust that number Vicky gave me for a second after her being all weird and Oz turns into a useless, stuttering pile of tears whenever I’m around them so he’s the only option we really have.”

Vera tried the handle to the bathroom door—it was locked. Usually that was a solid sign to turn around and leave at Spooky High, but Vera had run out of patience for the month. She pulled out a handgun, shot the handle, and kicked the door open.  _ Finally, _ Vera could see whom she’d been looking for.

To her displeasure, however, the zombie had a shirtless Damien LaVey’s legs wrapped around his waist, the aforementioned demon sitting up on the sink bench covering Brian’s neck in hickeys. Of course chaotic, clueless, dumbass  _ Damien _ would be successful, because that just made perfect fucking sense. If Vera hadn’t been in a bad mood before, she  _ definitely _ was now.

Polly drifted in after her, her eyes immediately lighting up. “OHHHHHH Damien’s getting some zombie dick! HELL YEAH MAN!”

Damien pulled back from Brian reluctantly with a half-annoyed-half-amused sigh. “Yeah, I am, so would you two mind fucking off?”

“Oh don’t worry boo, I got you covered,” Polly said, grabbing Vera’s arm and attempting to drag her away. She didn’t budge so much as an inch, instead reaching up and massaging her forehead with her fingertips.

“Look, I’ve run out of patience for the day so you’re just going to suck it up. I need to talk to Brian for all of  _ five _ minutes. Then you can go back to canoodling,” Vera said.

“Who the fuck says  _ canoodling?” _ Damien said, making a face.

“After five minutes you can go back to grinding against the walking corpse like a dog in heat humping the dead body of his owner. Better?”

Damien opened his mouth to argue, but Brian held a hand up in front of him. “It isn’t worth it, babe. What do you want, Vera?” He was using that same dismissive tone that Amira had been using and it  _ really _ ground Vera’s gears. Damien looked about halfway towards exploding, like usual, but somehow reigned himself in and just leaned against a bathroom mirror with his arms crossed, sulking. Vera swore she could see his cheeks glow a little pink when Brian called him  _ babe— _ since when was Damien bashful? How did they already get to the pet-names? It had been a fucking  _ week. _ It was so goddamn stupid how easy this had turned out for him.

“Hey,” Brian said, snapping his fingers. “I know he’s hot with his shirt off, but you came here to talk to me, right? I’m over here.”

Vera growled, snapping her attention back to the zombie. “Look. All I need is for you to get me in contact with Amira. She won’t return my calls and she’s changed her walking patterns so that I don’t know where she is anymore.”

“Sounds like she’s avoiding you.”

“ _ Excellent _ deduction, sherlock. What do you want, a gold star?”

Brian shook his head, unimpressed. “If she doesn’t want to talk to you, she’s not gonna talk to you. Me asking her to isn’t gonna change anything. And honestly? I don’t see why I should even do that.”

“Well how is it that you’re hooking up with one-horn over here, then?” Vera snorted. “I saw him crawling over to Vicky and begging her to set him up with you like some wounded, sniveling puppy. Why does he get a second chance and I don’t?”

“That is NOT what fucking happened!” Damien growled, embarrassed, flames sparking up around him. 

Brian simply stepped in between him and Vera to keep him from throwing a fireball at her. “First:  _ I _ gave him another chance, and that was  _ my _ decision. It had nothing to do with Amira. If  _ she _ wants  _ you _ to fuck off, then you can fuck off. Second: Damien owned up to the fact that he was kinda shitty to me like a grown-ass adult instead of going ‘hey bitch, you owe me a date’ like you did. So that’s not exactly a point in your favor either.”

“If I wanted a lecture I’d be in class. Just call her, jackass. Tell her I’m holding you hostage or something if you have to,” Vera said.

“That sounds like a great way to get torched.”

“I don’t want your opinion, Brian, just  _ call _ her.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Vera’s snakes all flared out from her head, hissing, as she stepped forward and grabbed Brian by the throat with one hand. “I’ve had enough of this. Pull out your damn phone.”

Damien looked back and forth between Brian and Vera, slowly reaching for one of the many knives he kept in his pockets. “Brian, maybe you should just listen to her and get it over with.”

“Nah. It’s kinda funny that you think I’m scared of her,” Brian said, a smug grin forming on the half of his mouth that was there as he stared Vera straight in the eyes. “Look, Vera, I know you’re smart enough  _ and _ rich enough to find her if you wanted to. So that means you’re really here for advice, but you’re too far up your own ass to admit it in front of other people. Right?”

Vera narrowed her eyes, glaring daggers, but Brian continued on. “So if you want my advice, fine. If I were you, I’d just cut your losses now, because Amira is one of the proudest, most stubborn people I know and she holds one hell of a grudge. The chances of you fixing that burned bridge are slim to none. But I know you aren’t gonna settle for that answer, so here’s another one for you: you’d better spend every hour of every fucking day until prom trying to prove that you actually value her as a person and not a commodity. Which I’m sure isn’t gonna be easy for you since you don’t care about anyone but yourself, but still.”

“You don’t know anything about me, you useless cadaver,” Vera said, voice dropping to a hissing whisper. “You can’t honestly expect me to just put my entire life on hold for her.”

“I know plenty about the person you like to present to the rest of the world, though,” Brian said, still not budging. “And yeah, I can. Maybe if you treated her with some  _ basic _ respect while she was helping you with all your shit it wouldn’t have come to this, but here we are. Amira isn’t gonna settle for less than someone who treats her like a goddamn queen, so you have a lot of work to do. And if you don’t want to put that work in, don’t. But you sure as hell can’t expect her to just fall into your lap because you think you deserve her.”

Vera let go of Brian with a huff, turning around. “This was a waste of time,” she said, slamming the bathroom door behind her as she left.

“Wow, you  _ really _ must have a death wish, huh?” Polly giggled.

Brian chuckled a little, too. “Eh, I’m already dead. I guess you want something too?”

“Nothing quite as uh… dramatic as that,” Polly said, looking back at where Vera had left. “But sorta the same topic, I guess. I’ve been  _ trying _ to get Amira to party with me all week, but she keeps turning me down. And she doesn’t seem  _ mad _ at me, but… I dunno. You have any ideas how I can spice things up a little?”

Brian shrugged a little, leaning back against the wall as Damien started tapping on the sink impatiently with a knife. “I don’t think she’s bored of you, Polly. That’d be quite the feat.”

“I know, right? But I don’t get why she doesn’t want to hang out with me, then.”

“She’s looking for something serious,” Brian said. “I think she’s past fun and parties all the time, I guess.”

“W—But I’m more than fun and parties, you know! I like chess and Russian literature. And I’ve got… you know. Other depths. Amira knows that.”

“So you’re fond of saying,” Brian said, smiling a little. “I mean I don’t know the details, but from what I hear Amira helped you with some really serious shit last year. But have you ever done that for her? Have you ever shown her that she can trust you with anything?”

“Sure I have! I mean I take her to the  _ coolest _ parties literally all the time, and I… well. I mostly take her to parties, actually.”

Brian gestured his hand towards her vaguely. “It’s fine if you just want to have fun with someone. But that isn’t what Amira’s looking for anymore, as far as I know. It takes a  _ lot _ to earn Amira’s trust—I would know—and if it feels like she can’t trust you with the important stuff because you’d tell someone else as a prank or start shouting it out loud while drunk at a party, well… she isn’t gonna trust you. Not really. And right now, I think someone she can trust is all she really wants.”

“I wouldn’t do anything like that,” Polly said, indignant. “I know I’m a little reckless sometimes but I don’t just screw over my friends. Right, Damien?”

“I mean you left me to face a fucking  _ war crimes _ tribunal that one time by just ditching me and going to the Ghost Zone or whatever when Crazy Martin came after us,” Damien said, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh please, you were  _ fine. _ Once you finally remembered you were a prince you just used your diplomatic immunity to weasel your way out of it,” Polly said.

“My point is, Polly,” Brian said, “I know that you don’t  _ intentionally _ try to fuck people over very often, but… sometimes you do stuff that screws up everyone around you. I mean, two weeks ago you and Vera fed Scott a goddamn  _ love potion _ at that one house party as a joke. Do you have any idea how wrong that could have gone if he hadn’t looked at the ceiling instead of some creepy douchebag?”

“Okay now  _ hold on, _ ” Polly said, raising her voice. “I would  _ never _ let something screwed up like that happen to Scott. How  _ dare _ you.”

Brian shrugged. “Were you even sober enough to stop something bad from happening if something went wrong? And how often do plans go as planned in this school, anyway? I don’t care what you say, love potions aren’t something you fuck around with. I get that you’re a ghost and you can do a bunch of heroin without screwing yourself up, and that’s great for you. But you really don’t think of how your actions affect other people, Polly, and that’s probably why Amira keeps you at arm’s length. You’re great for when someone wants to have a fun time, but—can you honestly expect her to trust you when things get real?”

Polly opened her mouth to argue, but instead stood there silently for a few moments, face dropping. She crossed her arms, looking down at the floor. “I… you know, it’s funny. Amira and I sort of talked about the same thing last year, with the whole… locket fiasco. I sorta just. Forgot about it, I guess.”

Polly sighed, pulling a piece of paper out of her pocket and giving it a brief glance. “Thanks, Brian. I think I know what I wanna try next.” She smiled again and gave Damien a wink as she faded through the wall. “I’ll give you two some privacy. See you later, boos~”

**~B~**

“Fucking  _ finally,” _ Damien sighed, walking over to the door. He put his hands on the hinges until they started to melt, sealing the doors shut. “I thought they’d never leave.”

“Someone’s impatient,” Brian chuckled.

“It’s called being horny, asshole. As if you have room to talk,” Damien said, hopping back up onto the sink. “And what the hell were you thinking, provoking Vera like that? You’re lucky you’re not a statue right now.”

“Aw. You’re cute when you’re worried.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Damien said, blushing again.

Brian just shrugged, settling his hands on Damien’s hips. “She couldn’t have killed me, or Amira would have incinerated her ass. No point being scared of someone too smart to hurt you.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I would have torched her too, you know,” Damien said, wrapping his arms around Brian’s neck somewhat sulkily. 

“Heh. Now that’s downright romantic.”

Damien squinted, staring Brian in the eyes. “You were pissing her off on purpose, weren’t you?”

“She’s kinda fun to mess with, not gonna lie.”

“I can’t tell if you’re really fucking brave or really fucking dumb. It’s kinda hot.”

“Oh yeah?” Brian grinned and leaned in, kissing Damien’s neck. Damien growled happily, snaking his tail up the back of Brian’s shirt. Then he dug his nails into Brian’s shoulders in frustration at the sound of a fucking  _ buzzsaw _ at the door.

“Son of a motherfucking bitch,” Damien said, shoving Brian away and prowling towards the door. “Hey asswagons! The building’s fucking occupied!” He shoved the door and it’s now-severed melted hinges—it moved barely half an inch before hitting something with a metallic clang. Then it fell backwards towards Damien, who had to scramble out of the way, to reveal a certain smiley robot.

“Hello Friend Damien,” Calculester said. He tilted his head in confusion. “You are not wearing a shirt.”

Liam scooted in behind him, looking Damien up and down with a disapproving stare. “In the bathrooms? Really?”

“Screw off, Liam,  _ everyone  _ does it in the bathrooms. Unless they keep getting fucking cockblocked. So would you two stop cockblocking and  _ get out—” _

Brian tossed Damien’s shirt onto his head, and it hung awkwardly from his horn. Damien turned to look at him, flames sparking up again. Brian just gave him a half-amused-half-tired smile.

“Walk me home after school?” He suggested, shrugging.

“Fine,” Damien sighed, pulling his shirt back over his head as he shoved past Liam and Calculester.

“...Ah,” Calculester said, “I see. We have interrupted a sexual encounter between Friend Brian and Friend Damien. Our timing is very unfortunate.”

“You aren’t wrong,” Brian chuckled, “but it’s fine. Considering my sudden popularity, I’m guessing you two are looking for me?”

“Your assumption is correct,” Calculester said, face switching to :/, “but I am now conflicted. I wish to be happy that you and Friend Damien have achieved a successful romantic outcome together, but I am also sad because my own chances of a successful romantic outcome drops under 10% if both you and Friend Oz are unavailable.”

“Well uh… I wouldn’t really describe romance as a ‘success,’ Cal,” Brian said.

“Oh! So Friend Damien failed at romancing you, then? This brings my chances back up to nearly 43%.”

“No, he—that isn’t really what I meant.”

Liam sighed his classic Liam sigh and glanced at Brian. “May I?” he asked. Brian nodded. “You can’t just classify a ‘romantic outcome’ as successful or unsuccessful, Calculester. It’s much more nuanced than that.”

“Ah, I see. Please explain your alternate method of evaluation.”

“You can’t mathematically  _ evaluate _ the heart,” Liam said.

“Of course you can. For example, the average human heart weighs 247 grams—”

“The  _ metaphorical _ heart,” Liam said. “Ugh, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“I think what Liam is trying to say, Cal,” Brian said, “Is that ‘success’ in a relationship—if you want to call it that—is a really individual thing. Even when people break up, that doesn’t mean it was a failure. Sometimes they might just want different things out of life, or… I dunno. Even a shitty relationship has stuff you can learn from, sometimes.”

“Then… would you consider your relationship with Damien to be successful, by your own individual standards?” Cal asked.

“It’s still really new, all things considered,” Brian said. “He’s trying to be different this time around,  _ I’m _ trying to be different this time around—I don’t really know where it’s gonna go. But… I mean I’m happy right now, I guess, so. Sure, it’s successful.”

“...Once again I am baffled by the logic of organic life-forms,” Cal said. He reached up and scratched the side of his head, which earned him confused looks from both Liam and Brian. “Oh—I understand that scratching one’s head is a common expression of confusion. Am I incorrect?”

“No, you’re fine,” Brian said. “Just—what does a successful romantic outcome mean to you, Cal? Why does this matter so much to you?”

“From my observations, most students at Spooky High seem to subconsciously define a successful romantic outcome as attending the Monster Prom with the partner(s) of their choice, with the partner(s) of choice typically being the most “popular” monsters in the school. Ergo, a successful romantic outcome for me would be attending the prom with either you, Oz, Vicky, and/or Amira. However, Oz has already declined and Amira appears to be romantically uninterested in men. Therefore, you and/or Vicky are my only options.”

“See uh… there’s the problem,” Brian sighed, half-smiling. “Take it from someone who thought that way for  _ wayyyy _ too long, that isn’t the right way to go about things.”

“So what is the correct course of action? Do you, perhaps, have a wacky solution to this dilemma?”

Brian thought for a moment before walking out of the bathroom. “Walk with me,” he said. Cal and Liam followed. “Look. I am one horny dude, and my friends are even worse sometimes. I know that. So for the longest time, we would get up to a whole bunch of ridiculous shit to impress you guys so we could go to prom with you, because we had crushes on most of you guys at one point or another. So we’d end up putting people in danger and completely changing who we are and… a bunch of other unhealthy stuff to get there. And it worked, a lot of the time.

“But then it wouldn’t last, and we’d start over again, and do more crazy shit, and the cycle went on and on and on. And it didn’t happen all at once, but eventually I figured out that I just… wanted more out of a relationship than prom night. I didn’t want to be ignored by the person I liked unless I found a way to blow up the moon or some shit. And with Damien specifically—I realized I was just chasing him because he was hot and made things exciting. Over time I learned that there was a lot more to him than that, and I liked all those parts of him too, but… even if we ended up deeper somehow, he wouldn’t even be in love with the real me. Just whatever face I had put on to impress him.

“So I’m trying to do better this time,” Brian said. “I made it clear that I don’t want to be ignored after prom. I’m trying to let Damien get to know the real me, so that I can be honest with him instead of trying to get his attention constantly. And I want to be a good boyfriend and actually give him what he needs instead of what I think he wants to hear. It’s gonna take a lot of work, but I’m ready to try it.”

Calculester was staring at him as they walked, mesmerized, while Liam had his eyebrows raised, seemingly impressed. Brian blushed a little and averted his gaze. “That was a long-ass soliloquy,” he said, clearing his throat. “A-Anyway. The point I was trying to make, Cal, was that I was comfortable enough with who I am and what I’ve learned to just not care about prom this year. And it turns out that Damien wants to try something for real this time, and I’m  _ really _ happy he does. But that doesn’t mean I’m letting my relationship status define how worthwhile my life has been.”

“That is… a lot of information to process,” Cal said.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“It is valuable data, though,” Cal said. “So… I suppose I must come up with my own personal definitions for what I want in a relationship. Which will likely be difficult, as I unfortunately am not an entirely free-thinking being.”

“The most important questions in life are those most difficult to answer, Calculester,” Liam said. “It’s the same for all us ‘organic life-forms’ as well. Now may I ask where we’re going, Brian?”

“I wanna introduce you guys to some other friends of mine,” Brian said, waving at someone on a park bench. He walked over and plopped down next to them.

“What’s good, man?” Kale said, holding his hand up for a fist bump. It quickly evolved into a secret handshake during which he handed Brian a lit joint.

“Just dealing with my new popularity,” Brian said. “I wanted to introduce you to Cal and Liam. Thought they could use some of your chill-time secrets.”

“Oh yeah?” Kale chuckled. “Don’t tell me you’re sick of the attention.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “You’re never gonna let me live that down, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Look, if I’d known you were aroace, I wouldn’t have done any of that stupid stuff. I’m just… really bad at reading signals sometimes.”

“Really,  _ really _ bad at reading signals. Like, hilariously bad.”

“Oh screw off, cabbage-brain,” Brian said, punching him in the shoulder lightly. “Is Blobert coming? He’s never late to anything.”

“Yeah, I mentioned some Pokeman cards I was wanting for a new deck and he ran to his locker to grab his collection so we could trade. He should be back soon.”

“Sweet,” Brian said, taking a hit of the joint. “Uh, right. Intros. Cal, Liam, this is Kale. Kale, Liam and Calculester.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Calculester said, extending his arm for a handshake. Kale gave him a mildly curious look, but shook it. Liam just gave him a half-hearted wave.

“Same,” Kale said. “So. What do you guys need?”

“We were in the process of asking Friend Brian for advice regarding achieving a successful romantic outcome at prom this semester,” Calculester said.

“You brought them to me for romance advice?” Kale said, giving Brian a flat look.

“Nah. I thought you might be able to explain that romance isn’t, you know, necessary to have a nice life. Cal kinda seems fixated on that idea and uh… I’m probably not the best person to ask.”

Kale laughed. “Yeah, sure. I can try.” He glanced towards the direction of the school and waved at Blobert.

“Oh wow, hi everyone!” Blobert said, waving as he joined the group at the bench. “Hi Liam! It’s been too long since we’ve talked. I loved your new album, by the way! It was so innovative!”

“Oh, you listened to it?” Liam said, blushing a little. “I—well of course it was! I made it, after all.”

Blobert gave him a big, beaming smile before turning to Calculester. “And I don’t think we’ve met before! My name is Blobert. It’s wonderful to meet you!”

Calculester shook his hand as well. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance as well, Friend Blobert! I am Calculester.”

“Rule number one of living a good life: everyone should have a Blobert in their life,” Kale said, pulling out a box of Pokeman cards.

“Truer words have never been spoken,” Brian said.

“Oh stop you guys,” Blobert said, looking down shyly. “Oh, right! Here’s the cards you wanted, Kale!” He laid three Pokeman cards on the bench neatly, which Kale picked up. Kale then handed him a card in return. “Oh, I can’t believe I finally got my hands on a Lindsey Smith! I’m so happy.”

“Happy to help, man,” Kale said.

“So, Calculester,” Blobert said, tucking the card neatly into a protective box and putting it under his baseball cap. “We should get to know each other! What’s a favorite hobby of yours?”

“I very much enjoy tending to plants,” Calculester said. “I believe that they help me to better understand some of the joys of being a living organic being.”

“That’s wonderful!” Blobert said. “Kale and I were actually just discussing trying to build a little garden on school grounds for everyone to relax in.”

“Really?” Calculester said. “That sounds like an objectively good idea. Are you planning on housing any succulents in this hypothetical garden?”

“We haven’t really discussed the details yet,” Blobert said. “Do you like succulents?”

“They form the majority of the collection of plants I care for,” Calculester said. “If you like, I have a wide variety of data available to help you make the best selection of plants for your garden. I would love to be of service, especially to such a potentially wholesome cause.”

“That sounds incredible! Kale, come over here so we can discuss our garden idea with Calculester!”

“Duty calls,” Kale chuckled, standing up from the bench to sit down with Calculester and Blobert on the ground. Cal and Blobert started discussing garden ideas excitedly, with Kale mostly just listening.

“Well that was easier than I thought,” Brian smiled, leaning back against the bench. Liam sat down next to him.

“Are we really that much of a nuisance to you?” Liam asked.

“Eh. It’s just nice seeing Cal happy.”

Liam stared at him for a few moments, trying to read him. “May I ask you something a little personal?”

“Shoot.”

“Why did you help Miranda make me Prom King a few years ago?”

Brian raised an eyebrow and then shrugged. “I don’t really have an interesting answer for you there. Probably gonna be disappointed.”

“I’d still like to have it.”

Brian sighed. “I had a crush and was trying to get you to go to prom with me.”

Liam smirked a little. “Maybe at one point I would have believed you were that shallow, but clearly there’s a little more to you than that. Even if that was  _ mostly _ the reason.”

Brian gave a dry chuckle. “Whatever. I guess… I dunno, man. You were literally gonna pack up and move to Romania or some shit and I didn’t want you to leave. This place would be a lot less bearable without you around.”

“...You really feel that way?”

“Sure. Look—there are a lot of, uh… high-energy people at this school. Damien being one of them. And I like a lot of them, but they’re  _ a lot _ to deal with sometimes. So it’s nice to have some people around that I can just chill and listen to music with sometimes. So yeah, I like having you around,” Brian said.

Liam stared for another few moments. “Then…?”

“Nah, I’ve been over that crush for a while now. Sorry, man.”

“No, don’t be. Everyone sees the chemistry you and Damien have, anyway.”

“Are you really that heartbroken?” Brian chuckled.

“...No,” Liam conceded. “I... suppose I had a crush as well, if we’re being entirely honest with each other. But it’s passed for me as well.”

“Then why are you so hung up about prom? It’s usually pretty damn hard to get you to care about anything,” Brian said.

“I’ve been trying to figure that out,” Liam said. “There are reasons I’m so against mainstream garbage, but after all our prom experiences I’ve started to reconsider some things, I suppose. Maybe not everything that’s popular or commonplace is… necessarily bad. I feel like I might have not pursued anything further after prom because I thought it would be too heteronormative, and… well. Now I may have missed out on something I would have truly enjoyed. I don’t like that feeling.”

“A lot can happen in a few weeks,” Brian said. “Trust me, I would know.”

“You’re right. But I think I’ve missed my shot at prom this year with any of you,” Liam said, a sad smirk on his face.

Brian shrugged. “I think we’ve put a little too much emphasis on prom anyway,” he said. “You never know when you’ll find someone you click with you know? Just keep an open mind, and the next time you meet someone like that… just go for it and don’t worry about what other people think.”

“You’re right.” Liam leaned back against the bench. “When did you get so wise?”

“Half of solving people’s problems is being a good listener, I guess.”

“And what’s the other half?”

“Being horny enough to go ridiculous lengths to impress them.”

They both shared a laugh.

**~C~**

By some miracle, Vicky’s classes had been easy today. She’d had not one, but two substitute teachers in her hardest classes. It was so bizarre of a coincidence that she was beginning to suspect some foul play from one or more of her friends—which would be sweet, if misguided. Still, she couldn’t deny that she really,  _ really _ needed the break. Plus, it gave her time to get her thoughts together for her little lunch talk with Scott.

Not that Vicky had really been able to think about anything else, anyway. The dopey smile he gave her as she walked over with her tray nearly broke her heart in half. She’d tried dropping hints and letting him down gently; but this was Scott. She knew from the beginning that wasn’t going to work with him. Being direct might hurt his feelings, but leading him on was a lot more cruel. She just… needed to get this over with. Pull off the bandage.

Vicky put on a smile twice as cheery as she normally wore and sat down. “Hi, Scott,” she said, smile nearly faltering when she heard Scott’s wagging tail start to smack against his chair frantically.

“Hi Vicky! Has your day been better today?” Scott said, beaming.

“It has,” Vicky said, giggling. “All of my teachers decided to take a raincheck today, apparently.”

“My pranks worked then!” Scott laughed. “I was worried because I’m only half of the Prank Masterz, but it looks like I can do fun pranks on my own too.”

Vicky blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I sent Ms. Nosferatu’s familiar on a plane to Bolivia, and they have to stay within a certain distance of each other all the time, so she’s probably hanging in the air under a plane over the ocean right now,” Scott said. “And I swapped all the potion ingredients Mr. Homunculus uses to make himself a new body every week with different kinds of barbeque sauce, so now he’s just a delicious-smelling ooze puddle in a cauldron! Haha, pranked!”

Vicky, caught completely off-guard, burst out laughing. Scott smiled even wider. “It’s nice to see you laugh again. You’ve been all stressed lately,” he said.

“Oh I haven’t been that bad, have I?” Vicky asked. Scott shrugged. Vicky took a deep breath, composing herself. “So… about prom.”

“Yeah?” Scott put his elbows on the table, leaning forward and listening intently. Vicky’s resolve started slipping, but she held onto it.

“You were right when you said that it’s a lot of fun when we go together,” Vicky said, slow and quiet. She had to be clear. “And I want you to know that I think you’re a wonderful person, Scott. You’re sweet and funny and kind and brave, and you always stick up for your friends, and you just make everything brighter when you walk in the room. And you have been very, very good to me this past week when I really needed it. I want you to know that… you did everything you possibly could have done, and I truly appreciate it.”

“Aw… heheh.” Scott actually started blushing, hugging his shoulders and averting his eyes in the most  _ painful, _ heartbreakingly adorable way. “It was nothing. You deserve all of it! You’re always such a good friend to everyone, Vicky. You help everyone with their problems no matter how busy you are, and you always know how to make people smile when they’re down, and you can make people happy even when  _ you _ aren’t feeling very happy—it’s amazing. I’m always trying to be more like you.”

“I…” And there the tears came back again, building up behind her eyes. Why was it always like this around Scott? Him saying things that inadvertently split her chest in half. He was just so pure and innocent that Vicky just felt… inadequate sitting next to him. How would she ever explain to him that so much of her niceness was an act to get her classmates to like her, for her shallow, thirsty reasons? How many of her smiles were faked or exaggerated so she wouldn’t disappoint everyone that expected an uplifting attitude from her? Her friends had all told her ad nauseum that she overthought this sort of thing, but Vicky always felt like a fraud in the back of her mind. That, deep down, she’d never be able to meet all the expectations put on her by other people and  _ especially _ not the expectations she put on herself. And somehow, every time, Scott drew that side out of her through no fault of his own. There was always that voice that told her she wasn’t good enough for him, and that the fact he never stayed with her after prom confirmed that.

This needed to stop. She needed to get this over with and get back to class before she broke down crying in the middle of the cafeteria. It was already bad enough Scott had seen her cry in her house.

“That’s really sweet,” Vicky said, voice at a whisper. She cleared her throat. “But… there are very important reasons why I decided not to go to prom this year, Scott. I’m sorry.”

“...Oh.” Scott deflated, shrinking in on himself. He kept smiling, if barely. “It’s okay. I understand.” He looked up at Vicky, suddenly seeming so very small. “Can… can I ask what those very important reasons are?”

Vicky didn’t have the emotional capacity right now to delve into all the insecurities she’d just dredged up—that was a job best done in the company of her friends and a hot drink. No, there were other reasons why she was skipping prom, and she could at least give Scott those.

“I’m getting older, Scott,” Vicky said. “I am a grown woman—despite still being in high school because of really archaic monster laws that seriously need to be rethought. I… I want more than a prom date, Scott. I wanna find someone that I can… move in with someday. Settle down, have a family. I’m tired of flings—and I loved our time together, and all the fun times I had with everyone I took to prom, but I’ve outgrown that. I want something lasting, something real. I don’t think I can find that at this school, Scott.”

Scott was back to his intense staring, but it was less excited and more contemplative this time. “You mean… you wanna marry someone? And move to your own house and have lots of kids and love them all more than anything because they’d be the most precious things in the whole universe and always be there for them and your spouse forever and ever and ever?”

Vicky blinked, taken aback. “Uh—y-yes. That’s. That’s exactly what I’d like to do.”

“That sounds  _ amazing,” _ Scott said, eyes practically glittering. “You’d be the best mom, Vicky. And I always wanted to be the best dad ever!”

Vicky giggled. “I’m sure you will be someday, Scott.” Scott beamed again, and it brought Vicky some measure of relief.

“Well… why don’t we be the best parents together? Someday, I mean,” Scott said.

Vicky froze. He’d just… said that so matter-of-factly, out of the blue. It took her several seconds to come up with a response. “I… um… huh?”

“Yeah! I think I get it now—it would get pretty boring being in a time loop and never getting to grow up, even if prom is super duper fun. That’s what you’re saying, right? So… we could grow up together! We could be boyfriends—uh. Wait. I’d be your boyfriend, and you’d be my girlfriend,” Scott said, working the logic out on his fingers, “And we’d be happy like that for a while, and then you could propose to me, or I could propose to you, and then we’d get married and live in a cute house and have a bunch of adorable kids and love them forever and live happily ever after!”

Vicky stared at him in disbelief. “You—you can’t actually mean that.”

“Who else would I eventually marry, silly?” Scott chuckled.

“You really feel that way about me?” Suddenly all the tenseness in Vicky’s chest evaporated, replaced by bubbly sparks of warmth. A smile, a  _ real _ smile, crept onto her face despite itself.

“I always wanted to be your boyfriend, Vicky,” Scott said. Then he frowned a little. “Now I get why everyone was saying that we’ve been bad friends. I felt this way for a long time, but how would you know if I never told you? It must not feel very good to want to be someone’s boyfriend but thinking they don’t like you that way. Oh gosh, that’s really mean now that I think about it. I’m really sorry, Vicky.”

“It’s okay,” Vicky said. “I mean… I never had a serious talk with you about my feelings, either. So I guess we both made the same mistake.”

“You mean… you feel the same way about me, too?”

“I do, Scott,” Vicky said, smiling.

“So… does that mean we can be girlfriends? Uh—that you’ll be my girlfriend? And I can be your boyfriend?”

“There’s nothing I’d like more.”

“Oh my god, I’m so happy!” Scott practically leaped over the table, pulling Vicky into his arms and spinning around while they both laughed their asses off. “I’m going to be the best boyfriend ever, just you watch. You are gonna be the  _ happiest _ person in the whole world, next to me! Because I have you.”

Vicky just smiled, holding Scott a little tighter. To hell with trying to make sense of everything—sense was useless in monster life, as she should have learned by now. Scott made her happy, even if he took a bit to catch up sometimes; and it wasn’t as if this whole debacle wasn’t partially Vicky’s fault as well. How had both of them just never considered talking about how they wanted to take things a little further with each other? It was like some dumb rom-com where the main couple never actually gets together, or a dating sim that had no actually permanent outcomes or something.

Whatever. Right now, she was happier than she’d been in a long time. She couldn’t care less about how she got here, or that everyone in the cafeteria was totally staring at them.

**~D~**

Okay, so maybe the weekend event had been a failure—but it was still a new experience, which was something. Zoe did, however, need to recoup her lost CHARM, so to the gym she went. While there, she became best friends for life with a nameless background character and gained +2 CHARM.

After several very fast rounds of dodgeball (which Zoe won by telekinetically throwing all of the dodgeballs at once—she just wanted to skip to the part where she got to talk to Oz), Zoe finally ended up on the same team as her current love interest. At least, she thought she had ended up on their team; but they were nowhere in sight.

Reluctantly, Zoe used her eldritch powers to locate the fearling and found they had exited the gym, heading for the party tree again. Which wasn’t how this was supposed to work as far as Zoe knew, unless… this was the start of a secret ending? Giggling to herself over her good fortune, Zoe scampered off after Oz.

“Oz! Oz, hey, wait up!” Zoe called after them, but they kept walking. She increased her pace until she was jogging up next to them. “Are you doing, like, an aerobics routine or something?”

“I-I’m not in the mood to talk right now, Zoe,” Oz said, very conspicuously avoiding eye contact with her. “I just wanna be alone right now.”

“Why? Is something wrong?” Zoe said. Yep, this  _ definitely _ felt like secret-ending material. Maybe even angsty, backstory-revealing-secret-ending material. She resisted the urge to start giggling again and put on her serious face. “C’mon, Oz, you can trust me! I think I’ve got a solid 50-50 chance at helping you out with whatever’s going on. Probably even better than that if I play my cards right.”

Unnoticed by Zoe, Oz’s legs started to liquefy again, staining the grass black. This was absolutely a conversation Oz had been intending to have with her, but his nerves were still shot from the weekend and he was  _ not _ ready to have it yet. And her complete lack of subtlety was  _ definitely _ not helping his ongoing existential crisis.

“Look, Zoe, I really just  _ don’t _ want to talk right now,” Oz said, trying to make his voice as firm as possible. “Please go away.”

“Oh wow, this is really serious, huh?” Zoe said. The flippancy in her tone set something off in Oz. “C’monnnn, tell me so I can help! I’m invested in your well-being, Oz. For totally-not-thirsty reasons, of course.”

That was it. It took  _ a lot _ to get Oz angry, but they were too hurt and terrified and exasperated for them to not boil over. Literally in this case, as their half-liquid form started to bubble like tar.

“I asked you to leave me  _ alone,” _ they said, telepathic voice dropping several octaves. The daylight seemed to crawl away from them, their surroundings growing darker and darker. Zoe whispered something akin to “new character art” underneath her breath, and Oz turned around and stormed off. Zoe gave chase.

“Hey, wait! I didn’t even  _ do _ anything, Oz, why are you mad at me?”

“Do any—what are you waiting for,  _ dialogue options?” _

“Wh—maybeeeee?” Zoe said, glancing to the side. 

Oz turned to look at her, once-white eyes now bloody red. The bubbles on their “skin” started to pop with noises less like tar and more like terrified screaming.  _ “This isn’t a game,” _ they said, voice now a thousand whispers speaking over each other.

“Well I know it isn’t  _ literally _ anymore, but—”

“No! That isn’t—just stop! Stop it! You want to know why I’m upset? It’s this! This isn’t a  _ fucking _ game, Zoe!” His voice was shifting several times a second now; masculine, feminine, childlike, deep and bassy. The moon swallowed the sun in a solar eclipse.

Zoe opened her mouth to argue, then sighed a little. “I—you’re right, you’re right, it’s not. I’m sorry. I’ve just been really hyped for Monster Prom: Reverse, and I guess I jumped the gun a little. But you’re right, this isn’t a game anymore, it’s a fanfic and I should start acting like—”

“THAT ISN’T THE POINT!”

This time Oz’s voice cracked the walls of the school. The grass withered underneath them. Zoe actually flinched a little; she’d never heard Oz so much as raise their voice before, let alone  _ that. _

“What  _ is _ the point then?” Zoe asked.

“This is my  _ life,” _ Oz said, gesturing around vaguely. “I  _ know _ that there’s some stupid visual novel out there about us, and I know that some dumb writer is making this a fanfic out there somewhere. Just like I know there’s a universe out there where we’re both sentient watermelons, Zoe, it’s a multiverse! Every possible thing is happening at once right now. It’s great for you that you love fandom stuff, but save it for people who are actually fictional in  _ this _ universe,  _ please. _ I’m not a character, o-or some  _ prize _ for you to win because you guessed all the answers correctly.”

“Okay,  _ that _ is not fair,” Zoe said, raising her voice as well. “You are such a hypocrite, acting like you and your friends weren’t doing the exact same thing for  _ years, _ Oz.”

“Not like this,” Oz said. “Yeah we did a lot of stupid things, because that was the only way we could get any of you to so much as  _ look _ at us! And I’m not saying we didn’t do anything wrong, because all of it was obsessive and objectifying and bad—which is why we aren’t doing it this year. And yeah, because of the way the multiverse works, everything we did lines up perfectly with some goddamn video game, but it was never a game  _ to us. _ You don’t know how many nights of sleep Brian lost over Damien, o-or how stressed Vicky gets near prom, or h-how Amira and I would spend the nights we both got rejected on together at her house  _ crying _ all night! It was all real  _ to us, _ and it’s always been real  _ to us.” _

“I—I’m sorry,” Zoe said, taking a step back. The whole world had gone black around them. “I… I didn’t mean to… Oz? Are you crying?” Zoe had assumed the red liquid dripping from their eyes was just part of their scary form, but as that form faded and the red shifted to white, it looked distinctly like tears.

“I’ve known this is who I wanted to be for as long as I can remember,” Oz said, voice dropping back to its usual mousy self. The eclipse ended.“B-But it took me millions of  _ millenia _ to actually w-work up the c-courage t-to take physical form and j-just…  _ exist  _ like this. To pick a w-world I liked and live a life, like I-I wanted to. Out of  _ everyone  _ here, y-you’re supposed to understand how important this p-place is to me. How important m-my friends are to me. A-A-And you just… I was so h-happy with them before you showed up,” he said, voice cracking. “And now I’m a-always terrified and conf-f-fused a-and… and…”

Zoe was crying too now, frozen. Oz took a couple steps backward, clutching at the sides of his head. “I-I’m s… s-sor… j-j-just stop following me,” he said, disappearing into the ground.

“Oz—Oz wait, don’t—”

But they were gone, beyond Zoe’s eldritch vision; a bank of clouds prevented the sunlight from returning. She felt sick to her stomachs. Oz was usually so quiet and softspoken; how much did it take for them to snap like that? Did Zoe’s arrival here really make them that unhappy? She wanted to believe that was just some heat-of-the-moment thing, but…

That hurt.  _ Really _ hurt. And if she felt this bad, what could Oz possibly be feeling? Zoe knew all of this was real, in a certain sense—she just got  _ really _ deep into her RPing. Did Oz really think she just didn’t care about any of her friends? That… would be horrible. And scary, considering how powerful she was. Hell, now that her mind was on the topic all those implications would be downright soul-crushing.

How had she not figured all this out sooner?

*******

Oz reappeared in some back hallway of the school, trying unsuccessfully to stop crying. Gods, he just wanted these next few weeks to be over. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.

“Oz?”

It seemed like his teleportation had brought him close to something or someone he found comforting, as it often did. Amira walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, looking him in the eye.

“Who did this?” she asked, unable to hide the undertones of anger. Oz said nothing, instead hugging her tightly. They shivered, crying more. Amira held them for a few moments before stepping back, putting an arm around their shoulders, and walking them towards the exit.

“We’re getting sundaes,” she said before Oz could ask. A few minutes later they both had absurdly large desserts and were sitting in Amira’s car with the seats reclined, parked in the middle of the woods. Neither of them said a word the entire time.

“At least there’s some good news,” Amira said, checking her phone. Oz looked over at her. “Vicky is now dating a certain werewolf, so. I guess we’re the single Pringles now, eh?”

Oz chuckled a little. “...I’m happy for them. For Brian and Damien too.”

“Scott, I’m not worried. Jury’s still out on Damien, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve got my eye on him.” Amira sighed. “But he makes Brian happy, so. I’ll restrain myself from strangling him. For now, anyway. So until we find what we’re looking for, it’ll be you and me against the world, partner.” She smiled and looked over at Oz like she was about to say something, but thought better of it and returned to silence.

“...I’ll keep you safe,” Oz said to themself, barely audible.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Thanks f-for the sundae, Amira.”

“Anything for my best friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Well hot diggity doggos it has been a minute hasn't it ahahaha~~
> 
> Sorry about the wait guys gals and nonbinary pals; college has, as I predicted, kicked my ass this semester :') But chapter 8 is here, so yay!
> 
> I did have a question for anyone that feels like answering, though. I've had some sections of this chapter done for months now, and they've just been sitting there while I continued writing the rest of it. Since the subsections are (mostly) self-contained--would y'all like it if I just posted the subsections when I finish them? That would keep the updates from being months apart, lol. I really would prefer to update more often, but the chapters in this middle week are going to be pretty meaty if my outline has anything to say about it :/
> 
> To elaborate--I'd probably just edit chapters with new subsections when I finish them until I actually complete a chapter. The sections are grouped by chapter for a reason, so I don't think I'd want to turn this into a 100-chapter fic with really short chapters, lol. It would be a little weird, but at least then there'd be new content out there for anyone that checks in. Anyway--let me know what you think if you're so inclined, and as always, thanks for reading! --<3 PhantomDreamshade


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